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LOTHROP,  LEE  &  SHEPARD  CO. 

BOSTON 


LITERARY  LIKINGS 


RICHARD   BURTON 


RIENDSHIPS 
BEGIN  WITH 
LIKING  .  .  . 

George  Eliot 


BOSTON : 
LOTHROP,    LEE   &   SHEPARD   CO. 


NEW  EDITION 


COPYRIGHT,  1898, 
BY  COPELAND 
AND  DAY. 

COPYRIGHT,  1903, 
BY  LOTHROP 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY. 


TO   MY   WIFE 


NOTE 

The  papers  making  up  this  volume  have 
with  one  or  two  exceptions  appeared  pre- 
viously in  the  columns  of  The  Forum,  The 
Atlantic,  The  North  American  Review,  The 
New  England  Magazine,  The  Dial,  Poet 
Lore,  and  other  publications.  The  writer 
herewith  acknowledges  the  courtesy  of 
the  editors  in  allowing  him  to  reprint  the 
essays. 


Contents 


Robert  Louis  Stevenson  3 

The  Democratic  and  Aristocratic  in  Liter- 
ature 35 
Phases  of  Fiction                                                 59 
I.    The  Predominance  of  the  Novel          61 
II.    The  Persistence  of  the  Romance          70 

III.  Novels  and  Novel-readers  77 

IV.  Permanent  Types  in  Modern  Fic- 

tion 91 

Bjornson,  Daudet,  James  :  A  Study  in  the 

Literary  Time-spirit  107 

Ideals  in  American  Literature  131 

Renaissance  Pictures  in  Browning's  Poetry   150 

Old  English  Poetry  173 

I.    Old  English  Poetry  175 

II.    Nature  in  Old  English  Poetry  183 

III.    Woman  in  Old  English  Poetry         222 

Washington  Irving's  Services  to  American 

History  247 

A  Battle  Laureate  279 

The  Renaissance  in  English  313 

American  English  341 

Literature  for  Children  363 


Robert    Louis    Stevenson 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

¥ 

i 

THE  day  has  not  yet  come  perhaps 
for  an  impartial  judiciary  on  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson.  Contemporary  criticism 
proverbially  walks  in  Blind  Man's  Alley. 
But  it  is  difficult  not  to  speak  of  Steven- 
son, because,  aside  from  his  being  a  dis- 
tinctive writer  of  his  day  and  generation, 
he  was  the  best-loved  personality  among 
current  English  writers.  It  is  as  impos- 
sible not  to  enter  into  intimate,  affectionate 
relations  with  him  as  it  is  in  the  case  of 
Charles  Lamb.  Hence  the  chorus  of 
praise,  the  many  confessions  of  faith,  that 
have  followed  upon  his  lamentable  taking- 
off  in  the  prime  of  his  literary  powers. 
Great  makers  of  literature  —  men  who 
mean  much  to  us  and  do  much  for  us  — 
are  by  no  means  of  necessity  loved  in 
proper  person.  Wordsworth  or  Goethe 
may  have  long  been  my  literary  idols:  it 


4  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

does  not  imply  that  I  would  have  given 
a  shilling  to  meet  them  in  the  flesh; 
whereas  I  would  have  paid  blood  and 
treasure  for  a  half  hour's  chat  with  Steven- 
son. But  love  for  the  man  and  his  work 
may  not  justify  another  attempt  at  appre- 
ciation. Some  Frenchman  has  told  us 
that  one  needs  not  only  to  love,  but  to 
love  gracefully.  Yet  affection  should  be 
a  sort  of  lamp  for  guidance  in  the  dis- 
covery of  quality  ;  moreover,  the  sympa- 
thetic author  seems  to  say  some  special 
thing  to  one's  self  alone,  and  the  admirer 
can  but  feel  that  certain  phases  of  a  writer's 
gift  have  not  been  indicated  in  true  pro- 
portion or  significance. 

II 

The  story  of  Stevenson's  life  will  have 
a  steadfast  fascination.  There  was  in  it 
enough  of  variety  and  picturesqueness  to 
catch  the  eye;  while,  deeper  down,  one 
feels  the  pulse  of  the  hero,  the  pathos  of 
the  struggle  of  a  man  bodily  frail,  intrepid 
of  spirit,  indomitably  set  upon  brave  ac- 
complishment. This  has  all  the  more  of 
pathetic  appeal  because  of  the  fine,  high- 
bred reserve  practised  by  Stevenson  in  his 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON  5 

literary  work,  concerning  his  physical  ail- 
ments. The  only  reference  I  recall  in  the 
whole  range  of  his  writings  intended  for 
publication  (even  in  the  Vailima  Letters 
such  allusions  are  curiously  absent)  is  that 
in  the  charming  paper  called  The  Manse., 
where,  speaking  of  a  clergyman-ancestor 
who  was  of  a  sickly  habit  of  body,  the 
essayist  remarks  :  "  Now  I  often  wonder 
what  I  have  inherited  from  this  old  min- 
ister. I  must  suppose  indeed  that  he  was 
fond  of  preaching  sermons,  and  so  am  I, 
though  I  never  heard  it  maintained  that 
either  of  us  loved  to  hear  them.  He 
sought  health  in  his  youth  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  and  I  have  sought  it  in  two  hem- 
ispheres ;  but  whereas  he  found  and 
kept  it,  I  am  still  on  the  quest."  The 
delicacy  and  simplicity  of  this  make  it 
very  beautiful.  Stevenson  had  no  trace 
of  that  unpleasant  egoism  which  makes  a 
man  whine  over  himself.  The  typical 
mood,  private  or  public,  is  that  expressed 
in  the  meeting  with  a  friend,  who,  after  a 
long  separation,  inquired  of  him  what  he 
had  been  about.  "  Well,  my  dear  fellow," 
quoth  Louis  gayly,  —  it  was  at  Bourne- 
mouth at  a  time  when,  in  a  phrase  of  his 


6  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

own,  he  was  "  far  through,"  —  "I  have 
been  principally  engaged  in  the  business 
of  dying,  and  you  see  I  have  made  a 
failure  of  it."  The  pluck  and  gallantry 
of  the  answer  are  representative. 

Stevenson,  a  Scot  of  distinguished 
family,  was  a  Bohemian,  a  world  wan- 
derer ;  one  of  the  main  denotements  of 
his  individuality  is  the  way  in  which, 
through  it  all,  despite  the  enforced  cos- 
mopolitanism of  his  life,  he  remained  a  son 
of  Scotland  in  blood  and  bone.  He  was 
a  native  of  Scotia  not  so  much  in  insular 
prejudices  as  in  his  cast  of  mind  and  play 
of  emotion.  An  essay  like  The  Foreigner 
at  Home,  the  Scotch  fictions  led  by  that 
incomparable  fragment  Weir  of  Hermiston, 
are  documents  in  the  case.  They  stand 
for  what  was  ingrain.  Under  the  alien 
brilliancy  of  his  dress  and  far  below  the 
facile  adaptation  to  the  customs  of  various 
climes,  deep  called  unto  deep  in  his  nature, 
and  steadily,  faithfully  he  found  his  orien- 
tation in  Edinburgh,  city  of  his  kinsmen 
and  love.  He  was,  after  all,  a  clannish 
man  to  the  last.  Read  The  Tropics  Vanish 
to  realize  it.  Once  set  him 

"In  the  highlands,  in  the  country  places," 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON  7 

and  "  the  spate  of  style  "  came,  with  the 
vision  and  the  creative  gust.  With  a 
nature  less  strong,  this  abiding  quality 
would  not  have  been.  Examples  among 
living  writers  lack  not  where  cultured  cos- 
mopolitanism has  pretty  much  effaced  race 
lines.  It  is  only  the  sturdy  men,  the  true 
independents  of  literature,  who  can  resist 
the  influence.  Turgenef  and  Sienkiewicz 
are  such  individualities  ;  Stevenson  is  of 
their  company.  The  lovableness  of  the 
man  has  somewhat  obscured  our  sense  of 
his  strength  in  this  regard. 

His  death  was  commensurate  with  his 
life  ;  in  accord  with  his  wish,  it  had  a  rare 
and  exquisite  fitness  :  a  sudden  brave  fin- 
ish, the  pen  still  wet  from  an  unfinished 
masterpiece.  The  stale  tedium  of  the 
sick-room  —  against  which  in  more  than 
one  essay  he  eloquently  harangues  —  was 
spared  him.  He  fell  in  mid-manhood  in 
a  creative  flush  of  accomplishment,  secure 
in  the  admiration  of  the  world  of  readers, 
cherished  in  loving  and  loyal  memory  by 
those  privileged  to  come  into  contact  with 
him  in  the  body.  The  affection  of  the 
Samoan  natives,  to  whom  in  those  few 
final  years  he  became  law-giver,  counsellor, 


8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

friend,  and  Teller  of  Tales,  is  a  black-letter 
index  of  his  magnetism,  his  great  gift  of 
heart.  From  boyhood  there  was  about 
him  an  atmosphere  of  refinement,  an  air  of 
romantic  grace:  to  be  noted  in  his  very 
clothes,  in  the  eye-sparkle,  the  mobile 
play  of  the  mouth,  and  the  odd,  whimsical, 
capricious  elegance  of  his  speech.  His 
talk  with  his  familiars,  I  am  credibly  in- 
formed, had  the  same  quality  as  that  of 
his  choicest  essays.  It  has  been  often  re- 
marked, truly  enough,  that  in  an  almost 
unique  degree  we  note  in  Stevenson  the 
survival  of  youthfulness.  Deep  in  his  soul 
the  imperishable  boy  abided  to  the  end. 
Child  Play,  The  Lantern  Bearers,  A  Child's 
Garden,  and  most  of  the  volume  Virginibus 
Puerisque  are  in  evidence.  But  to  regard 
this  quality  as  striking  the  keynote  of  his 
personality  is  wofully  to  err,  to  substitute 
the  part  for  the  whole.  The  assumption 
overlooks  the  complexity  of  the  man,  the 
many-sidedness  of  his  nature  —  best  sug- 
gested in  his  friend  Henley's  sonnet  char- 
acterization : 

APPARITION. 

Thin-legged,  thin-chested,  slight  unspeakably, 
Neat-footed  and  weak-firigered  :  in  his  face  — 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON  9 

Lean,  large-boned,  curved  of  beak,  and  touched  with 

race, 

Bold-lipped,  rich-tinted,  mutable  as  the  sea, 
The  brown  eyes  radiant  with  vivacity  — 
There  shines  a  brilliant  and  romantic  grace, 
A  spirit  intense  and  rare,  with  trace  on  trace 
Of  passion  and  impudence  and  energy. 
Valiant  in  velvet,  light  in  ragged  luck, 
Most  vain,  most  generous,  sternly  critical, 
Buffoon  and  poet,  lover  and  sensualist : 
A  deal  of  Ariel,  just  a  streak  of  Puck, 
Much  Antony,  of  Hamlet  most  of  all, 
And  something  of  the  Shorter- Catechist. 

It  is  this  very  manifoldness  of  Steven- 
son which  has  thrown  critics  off  the 
scent.  Most  writers  of  saliency  take  a 
position  with  the  Left  or  Right  in  litera- 
ture. Stevenson  possessed  sympathies 
which  drew  him  both  ways.  He  was  in 
some  particulars  a  daring  radical :  in  others 
an  aristocrat,  sitting  with  the  extreme  con- 
servatives. He  is  a  literary  force  not  at  all 
easy  to  catalogue  or  keep  under  a  rubric. 
This  becomes  apparent  only  when  the  full 
content  of  his  work  has  been  surveyed. 

Ill 

The  public  knows  him  most  familiarly 
through  his  fiction,  nor  should  his  con- 
tributions in  this  sort  be  minimized,  espe- 


io  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

cially  since  here  one  gets  his  romanticism 
in  process  of  demonstration.  The  whole- 
some reactionary  influence  of  Stevenson's 
novels  must  be  emphasized  :  in  them  his 
romantic  theory  is  implicit,  as  it  is  explicit 
in  some  of  his  essays.  From  the  morbid 
analysis,  the  petty  detail,  and  the  porno- 
graphic filth  of  that  miscalled  thing 
realism,  his  view  hallo  called  us  back  to 
the  happy  hunting-grounds  of  the  older 
story  of  incident,  adventure,  heroic  per- 
sonages. He  looked  upon  life  (for  the 
purposes  of  fiction)  not  only  as  a  stage 
for  high-hearted  action,  but  as  a  sort  of 
Continuous  Performance  full  of  change, 
bustle,  and  indefinite  opportunities  of 
amusement.  While  the  novelist  Steven- 
son is  not  all  of  Stevenson  nor  Stevenson 
at  his  deepest,  the  result  is  always  wel- 
come, not  seldom  superb.  With  the  in- 
creeping  of  the  more  subjective  —  as  in 
the  characteristic  and  too  little  known 
Prince  Otto  —  comes  a  feeling  on  the  part 
of  the  public  that  this  is  not  in  the  typical 
vein ;  hence  the  tale  is  not  so  garishly 
popular.  The  public  has  insisted  indeed 
on  regarding  Stevenson  as,  par  excellence,  a 
romanticist  only  in  the  sense  of  one  who 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON         n 

tells  an  objective  tale  with  little  care  for 
character  as  such  ;  which  is  all  wrong,  since 
in  works  like  the  Master  of  Eallantrae  and 
Weir  characterization  is  the  prime  motive; 
as  it  is,  moreover,  in  such  a  creation  as 
his  Ebb  Tide.  This  affixion  of  the  ro- 
mantic tag  to  Stevenson's  coat  has  given 
color  to  the  idea  of  him  as  one  who  held 
his  art  as  a  means  of  pleasure-giving, 
nothing  more.  It  may  be  observed  in 
passing  that  this  is  by  no  means  necessa- 
rily a  low  ideal ;  it  all  depends  upon  your 
definition  of  the  Protean  word  pleasure. 
But  one  who  stops  here  with  Stevenson  is 
again  off  the  scent.  Even  if  we  do  not 
overstep  the  bounds  of  the  novel,  to  read 
the  stories  ruminatingly  and  in  their  full 
content  is  to  realize  that  the  author  is  no 
more  romantic  than  realistic;  that  he  is 
both  objective  and  subjective  ;  Stevenson, 
in  truth,  sums  up  in  his  own  person  the 
proper  relation  of  ideal  to  actual.  His 
interest  in  life  as  fact  and  detail  was 
immense,  constant ;  his  inferences  (in  his 
fiction)  were  blithely  romantic.  His  own 
sprightly  genius  formed  the  connecting 
link  between  those  erroneously  reckoned 
contradictions. 


iz  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Stevenson's  tales  offer  a  kind  of  com- 
mon meeting-ground  for  readers  of  op- 
posing minds  and  creeds.  The  lovers  of 
romance  —  a  sight  of  folks  is  here  !  — 
hail  them  gleefully,  as  a  matter  of  course ; 
believers  in  "  realism  "  yield  such  fiction 
at  least  a  grudging  approval  —  since,  after 
all,  they  belong  to  humankind  and  enjoy 
what  is  enjoyable;  while  they  who  stickle 
for  style  are  fed  so  high  that  they  do 
willingly  overlook  so  vulgar  a  thing  as  a 
rattling  good  plot.  He  who  gets  no  satis- 
faction from  Treasure  Island  or  Kidnapped 
is  a  rarer  bird  than  the  Dodo.  It  is  one 
of  Stevenson's  merits  in  such  books  that 
he  administers  ether  to  the  critic  who, 
boy-like,  loses  sight  of  technique  in  pleas- 
ure and,  coming  later  out  of  the  swoon, 
finds  his  proper  joy  in  tasting  quality  and 
detecting  the  fine  art  of  the  performance. 
The  sense  of  literature  is  forgotten  for 
the  nonce  in  the  sense  of  the  joy  of  life  — 
the  joy  which  Oswald  in  Ghosts  longs  for 
so  piteously,  —  and  which  every  son  of 
woman  who  is  in  health  and  antecedent  to 
his  dotage  demands  at  Fate's  hands. 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 


IV 

It  is  no  belittlement  of  the  fiction, 
however,  to  find  the  realest  Stevenson, 
the  most  intimate  exposure  of  himself, 
in  the  essays  and  poetry.  It  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  one  knows  him  not 
until  he  is  known  here.  As  an  essayist 
Stevenson  has  the  preserving  qualities : 
charm,  rich  suggestiveness,  wisdom  lightly 
carried,  distinction  of  manner.  In  the 
essay  an  author  stands  self-revealed ;  he 
may  mask  behind  other  literary  forms, 
in  some  measure ;  but  commonplaceness, 
vulgarity,  thinness  of  nature,  are  in  this 
kind  instantly  uncovered.  The  essay  is 
for  this  reason  a  severe  test.  Character 
speaks  in  and  through  it ;  the  deepest  and 
most  winsome  of  a  man  comes  out  often 
in  an  essay ;  he  invites  you  into  a  confi- 
dential, quiet-furnished  corner  of  his  soul, 
there  to  listen  to  a  conversation  that  is  at 
once  colloquial  and  confessional.  And 
style,  manner,  is  to  the  essay  what  water 
is  to  the  fish :  an  element  native  to  its 
progress.  When  talking  of  the  essay  it 
is  inevitable  to  consider  an  author's  way 
of  saying  things.  Lowell  once  declared 


I4  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

of  Sidney  Lanier  that  he  had  a  genius  for 
the  happy  word ;  to  few  could  the  remark 
have  been  applied  more  fitly  than  to  Ste- 
venson. His  diction  is  not  seldom  spoken 
of  as  if  its  main  feature  were  co-ordination 
or  general  harmony.  It  is  true  that  it 
was  admirably  of  a  piece :  he  learned  to 
find  and  keep  the  "  essential  note."  Yet 
this  is  not  his  most  noticeable  hall- 
mark on  the  side  of  style.  He  was  start- 
lingly  felicitous  as  a  coiner  of  word  and 
phrase.  Swift's  narrow  definition  of  style 
as  the  right  words  in  the  right  places 
leaves  untold  the  more  important  half  of 
the  story.  The  "  right  "  word  is  well ; 
the  correct  writer  acceptable.  But  there 
is  something  besides  right  and  wrong  in 
the  selection  and  marshalling  of  words  for 
literary  purposes  :  there  is  good,  better, 
best ;  we  must  reckon  with  the  unexpected 
and  the  delightsome.  To  use  the  right 
word  is  a  sort  of  negative  virtue :  to  use 
the  creative  word,  —  unlooked-for,  a  glad 
surprise  to  reader  and  writer  alike,  —  that 
is  quite  another  and  higher  thing.  The 
difference  between  the  two  is  a  measure 
between  talent  and  genius.  Certain  critics 
harp  upon  what  they  call  the  "  inevitable  " 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON         15 

in  diction.  Pace  Flaubert !  there  is  no 
such  thing  ;  if  there  were,  literature  would 
be  mathematics.  Stevenson's  pages  have 
these  frequent  windfalls  for  us ;  we  mark 
the  passages,  and,  returning  on  the  page, 
smack  our  lips  over  the  more  leisurely 
second  tasting.  After  all,  it  will  not  do 
to  forget  that  to  the  truly  elect  of  literature 
expression,  if  not  all,  is  much ;  the  right 
turning  of  a  phrase  gives  such  an  one  a 
rapture  greater  than  would  the  taking  of 
a  city.  To  some  the  joy  will  seem  dis- 
proportionate, nugatory ;  which  is  but 
additional  proof  of  the  exquisiteness  of 
the  experience. 

Now,  one  feels  in  reading  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson's  finest  papers  —  careless,  in- 
imitable causeries  on  books,  men,  life,  the 
moral  verities  —  the  theme  is  naught, 
handling  everything  —  that  here  is  the 
manner  of  a  master;  a  man  with  infinite 
good  temper,  perfect  breeding,  and  char- 
acter. Not  to  recognize  the  character, 
along  with  and  over  and  above  the  style, 
is,  in  a  way,  to  announce  one's  limitations. 
Follow  the  essays  along  the  line  of  Steven- 
son's artistic  and  spiritual  development; 
from  the  slightly  self-conscious  cloth-of- 


1 6  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

gold  beauty  of  Ordered  South,  written  at 
twenty-two,  the  marvel  of  a  stripling,  to  the 
Christmas  Sermon  and  Puhis  et  Umbra, 
mellow,  majestic  deliverances,  nobly  reflec- 
tive and  surcharged  with  the  ethic  temper  ; 
and  what  you  notice  equally  with  the  gain 
in  sesthetic  command  is  the  broadening  and 
deepening  of  the  man's  soul.  Here  is 
high  thought  solvent  in  emotion  ;  emotion 
held  in  check  by  art  that  has  acquired  a 
law-abiding  freedom.  And  between  these 
chronologic  extremes  lie  what  winsome 
and  alluring  things !  What  exceptional 
gift,  charm,  distinction  !  A  side  of  the 
man's  nature  here  blooms  forth,  hidden, 
or  at  least  barely  hinted,  in  the  novels. 
His  essential  seriousness,  his  strong  moral 
predilection,  his  hang  for  spiritual  things, 
his  poetry,  his  sublimated  common-sense, 
—  all  of  these  qualities  pervade  the  essay 
work,  blending  in  the  total  effect  as  the 
juices  of  the  new  wine  to  make  the  subtle 
bouquet  of  the  mellow  vintage.  With 
the  exception  of  a  very  few  of  the  latest 
poems,  the  intellectual  maturity  of  Steven- 
son can  nowhere  else  be  seen  so  well. 

"  Of  Hamlet  most  of  all  " —  how  admir- 
able  is    Henley's  stroke   in   its    delicate 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON          17 

felicity  of  characterization  !  In  depth  and 
suggestion,  in  gentle  melancholy  that  runs 
not  into  whining  nor  stagnant  pessimism, 
that  in  no  wise  contradicts  the  sturdy 
courage  of  his  more  objective  and  imper- 
sonal writing,  Stevenson  is,  in  sooth,  a 
Hamlet ;  but  the  tricksy  touch  of  Ariel 
and  the  whimsey  of  Puck  are  there,  too, 
imparting  tonic  and  lightness  to  his  work. 
That  the  texture  is  slight,  the  subject 
matter  by  election  light  or  discursive, 
none  but  the  Philistine  would  speak  for 
a  reproach ;  the  fantasticality  is  a  rich 
embroidery  upon  the  enduring  stuff  of 
the  thought.  To  call  his  themes  far- 
fetched or  trivial  were  to  impugn  Charles 
Lamb  himself,  or  past  masters  in  other 
tongues,  like  Montaigne  or  Richter, — 
the  only  possible  excuse  for  discoursing 
of  roast  pig  is  the  paper  thereupon.  No 
essayist  ever  got  more  out  of  nothing  than 
did  this  frail  son  of  Edinburgh.  What  a 
world  of  reminiscent  tenderness,  of  shy 
ideality,  of  heart-piercing  pathos,  and  of 
canny  wisdom  as  well,  is  evoked,  for 
example,  by  such  a  thing  as  'The  Lantern 
Bearers  !  How  the  reader  is  led  to  realize 
the  common  childlikeness  of  us  all !  Or 


1 8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

in  Beggars,  with  its  picturesque  flavor  yet 
moral  sanity,  do  we  not  feel  behind  the 
raillery  an  impassioned  belief  in  the  uni- 
versal brotherhood?  No  more  delightful 
bit  of  egoism  can  be  named  than  the 
Chapter  on  Dreams,  a  fairy  tale,  yet  in  full 
accord  with  modern  psychology.  One 
almost  wonders  that  Stevenson  did  not 
anticipate  Du  Maurier  and  create  Peter 
Ibbetson.  In  another  vein,  Ordered  South, 
for  its  sane  philosophy  and  pensive, 
dreamy  loveliness  of  line  and  image  can- 
not be  fellowed  in  its  particular  genre ;  one 
cries,  in  gloating  over  it,  "  Here  indeed 
is  your  cloth-of-gold  style  !  "  His,  again, 
was  the  special  gift  for  esoteric,  desultory 
character  limning,  as  in  a  slight  paper  like 
The  Manse,  as  well  as  in  more  avowed  at- 
tempts at  full-length  portraiture.  Steven- 
son may  not  have  had  the  historian's  full 
equipment,  but  certainly  his  was  a  genius 
for  biography  ;  and  biography  is  only  his- 
tory on  its  intimate  and  informal  side.  He 
had  a  rare  relish  for  character-presentation, 
whether  the  subject  were  an  unknown 
Samoan  native  or  a  Robert  Burns.  His 
personages,  imagined  in  fiction  or  trans- 
ferred from  life,  stood  out  saliently,  in 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON          19 

high  relief.  How  his  admiration  for  main 
men,  his  hero-worship,  comes  out  in  a 
thing  like  The  English  Admirals,  or  how 
gallantly  he  cries  up  the  savor  of  life,  and 
frowns  upon  the  craven  fear  of  death,  in 
Aes  Triplex!  In  that  wonderful  little  paper 
Pulvis  et  Umbra  may  be  seen  perhaps  at 
its  most  puissant  our  writer's  picturesque 
power,  natural  poetry,  and  unhackneyed 
manner  of  thought  in  the  face  of  the  grave, 
great  things  of  Life  and  Death.  The  com- 
monplace treatment  of  the  theme  of  Evo- 
lution, and  of  man  as  its  last  consum- 
mate flower,  is  to  drone  along  about  the 
privilege  of  our  high  estate  and  the  result- 
ant duties.  Not  so  Stevenson  ;  contrari- 
wise, with  the  pathos  of  imaginative  poetry 
he  defines  homo  sapiens  as  "  condemned  to 
some  nobility,"  striving  along  with  all  lower 
creation  towards  an  "  unattainable  ideal." 
And  he  deems  it  would  declare  man  a 
poltroon  if  he,  "the  reasoner,  the  wise  in 
his  own  eyes,"  should  show  the  white 
feather  and  not  strive  on  with  all  other 
sentient  life.  "  Let  it  be  enough  for 
faith  that  the  whole  creation  groans  in 
mortal  frailty,  strives  with  unconquerable 
constancy  ;  surely,  not  all  in  vain."  It  is 


20  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

not  skill  or  the  revamping  of  the  tradi- 
tional that  produces  essays  like  these,  albeit 
the  technique  is  elegant.  A  nature  large, 
serious,  vital,  begot  them.  The  debt  to 
the  past  is  but  the  debt  any  thinker  or 
writer  owes  to  his  intellectual  forbears  — 
to  dodge  the  debt  is  to  announce  one's  self 
a  literary  bankrupt.  A  common  miscon- 
ception in  respect  of  Stevenson  is  that 
which,  observing  his  technical  power,  the 
fine  craftsmanship  he  displayed,  stops 
short  there.  The  Philistine  can  never  get 
over  or  around  Stevenson's  indiscreetly 
frank  avowal  of  his  own  literary  methods, 
whence  we  hear  now  he  "slogged  at  his 
trade"  and  "played  the  sedulous  ape"  to 
great  writers  during  his  novitiate.  This  is 
the  confession  of  him  who  assumes  that  the 
untold  half  will  not  be  forgotten,  that  the 
difference  between  the  lehrjahre  and  meis- 
terjabre  will  be  appreciated.  Those  who 
insist  that  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  was 
an  accomplished,  graceful  technician  and 
nothing  more  are  wide  of  the  mark.  They 
should  be  directed  especially  to  certain 
sentences  in  the  paper  which  tells  of  his 
obligation  to  chiefs  of  the  craft  —  sentences 
deserving  the  higher  accent  of  italics : 


ROBERT   LOUIS    STEVENSON         zi 

"  Perhaps  I  hear  some  one  cry  out :  But  this  is 
not  the  way  to  be  original !  It  is  not ;  nor  is  there 
any  way  but  to  be  born  so.  Nor  yet,  if  you  are 
born  original,  is  there  anything  in  this  training 
that  shall  clip  the  wings  of  your  originality.  There 
can  be  none  more  original  than  Montaigne,  neither 
could  any  be  more  unlike  Cicero ;  yet  no  craftsman 
can  fail  to  see  how  much  the  one  must  have  tried 
in  his  time  to  imitate  the  other.  Burns  is  the  very 
type  of  a  prime  force  in  letters :  he  was  of  all 
men  the  most  imitative.  Shakespeare  himself,  the 
imperial,  proceeds  directly  from  a  school.  It  is 
only  from  a  school  that  we  can  expect  to  have  good 
writers;  it  is  almost  invariably  from  a  school  that 
great  writers,  these  lawless  exceptions,  issue.  Nor 
is  there  anything  here  that  should  astonish  the 
considerate.  Before  he  can  tell  what  cadences  he 
truly  prefers,  the  student  should  have  tried  all  that 
are  possible;  before  he  can  choose  and  preserve  a 
fitting  key  for  words,  he  should  long  have  practised 
the  literary  scales;  and  it  is  only  after  years  of 
such  gymnastic  that  he  can  sit  down  at  last,  legions 
of  words  swarming  to  his  call,  dozens  of  turns  of 
phrase  simultaneously  bidding  for  his  choice,  and  he 
himself  knowing  what  he  wants  to  do  and  (within 
the  narrow  limit  of  a  man's  ability}  able  to  do  it." 

Stevenson,  then,  had  both  the  natal  gift 
and  the  necessary  training ;  a  conjunction 
evocative  of  superior  results  in  literature. 
The  false  and  shallow  dilemma  suggested 


22  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

by  the  Horatian  dictum  is  in  his  person 
exposed  in  all  its  fallaciousness.  The 
ethic,  in  truth,  might  be  called  the  dom- 
inant note  in  his  essays  and  verse;  the 
ethic  atmosphere  never  heading  up  in 
unpleasant  didactic  thunder-storms.  To 
miss  this  quality  in  him  is  not  to  know 
the  man  in  any  saving  sense.  The  uni- 
versal ethic  of  comradery  is  what  he 
preached;  loving-kindness  was  his  relig- 
ion. Above  all  he  hated  meanness,  cru- 
elty, and  cant.  Yet  his  tolerant,  sunshiny 
doctrine  did  not  prevent  a  full  recognition 
of  the  sterner  aspects  of  the  moral  order. 
Else  had  he  not  been  true  to  his  Calvinist 
ancestors.  He  felt  the  working  of  Law  as 
against  Love,  and  there  is  an  Old  Testa- 
ment flavor  to  both  thought  and  diction 
when  he  is  upon  such  themes.  The  dic- 
tion at  the  finest  is  saved  from  mere 
rhetoric  by  this  tendency.  Take  in  illus- 
tration one  of  the  "  purple  patches  "  of 
his  style,  that  superb  apostrophe  at  the 
end  of  The  Christmas  Sermon  : 

"  When  the  time  comes  that  he  should 
go,  there  need  be  few  illusions  left  about 
himself.  Here  lies  one  who  meant  well, 
tried  a  little,  failed  much:  surely  that  may 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON         23 

be  his  epitaph,  of  which  he  need  not  be 
ashamed.  Nor  will  he  complain  at  the 
summons  which  calls  a  defeated  soldier 
from  the  field :  defeated,  ay,  if  he  were 
Paul  or  Marcus  Aurelius  —  but  if  there 
is  still  one  inch  of  fight  in  his  old  spirit, 
undishonored.  The  faith  which  sustained 
him  in  his  lifelong  blindness  and  lifelong 
disappointment  will  scarce  even  be  required 
in  this  last  formality  of  laying  down  his 
arms.  Give  him  a  march  with  his  old 
bones !  There,  out  of  the  glorious  sun- 
colored  earth,  out  of  the  day  and  the  dust 
and  the  ecstasy,  —  there  goes  another 
Faithful  Failure !  " 

Compare  this  with  a  typical  passage 
from  a  master  of  prose  eloquence  like 
Ruskin — whose  spiritual  fervor  no  one 
disputes.  I  should  maintain  that  there  is 
an  equal  moral  fervor  and  lift,  and  less 
suspicion  of  fine  writing,  in  the  later  man  ; 
which  could  only  be  when  earnestness  and 
honesty  went  hand  in  hand  with  talent. 
Stevenson  does  not  allow  sentimentality  to 
emasculate  his  effect ;  as  Hazlitt  said  of 
another,  his  style  is  "  bottomed  on  the 
vernacular."  His  feeling  for  idiom  was 
wonderful.  In  fine,  while  the  novels  are 


24  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

well  worth  a  first  reading,  it  is  conceivable 
that  one  might  hesitate  at  a  second  —  at 
least  in  the  case  of  the  majority ;  whereas 
the  first  reading  of  the  essays  is  but  an 
imperfect  introduction  to  what  shall  be 
re-read  times  out  of  number,  until  it  be- 
come a  permanent  possession. 


The  ascription  of  the  title  of  poet  to  an 
essayist  and  story-maker  of  such  quality 
might  seem  more  debatable.  In  spite  of 
that  unique  achievement  A  Child's  Garden 
of  Verses^  —  at  the  time  of  its  publication 
the  only  collection  of  poems  in  the  tongue 
properly  to  be  called  child  poetry  in  con- 
tradistinction from  poetry  about  children 
for  the  delectation  of  older  folk,  —  the 
critic  might  well  have  hesitated  to  award 
to  Stevenson  the  proud  names  of  singer 
and  maker.  But  with  the  appearance  of 
the  final  edition  of  his  metrical  work,  per- 
mitting for  the  first  time  an  opinion  based 
upon  a  complete  survey,  such  reserve  be- 
comes unnecessary.  The  forty  additional 
pieces  of  the  final  edition  chiefly  constitute 
the  ground  for  the  consideration  of  Steven- 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON         25 

son  as  a  verse-writer  of  individuality  and 
fine  accomplishment.  They  show  his  gen- 
ius at  its  ripest,  and  are  as  interesting 
for  their  mastery  of  the  art  of  verse  as 
they  are  moving  in  the  imaginative  reve- 
lation of  his  deepest  nature.  For  strength 
and  beauty  we  should,  on  the  whole,  point 
to  them  as  the  Scotchman's  most  authentic 
gift  to  poetry  —  this  in  spite  of  the  charm 
of  the  child-verse,  or  the  blameless  love- 
liness of  a  lyric  like  the  Requiem.  Taken 
as  a  group,  the  poems  produced  while 
Stevenson  was  in  the  South  Seas  stand 
for  his  maturest  thought  expressed  in 
forms  most  likely  to  give  it  permanence. 
The  verse  referred  to  is  embodied  in  the 
division  entitled  Songs  of  'Travel  and  Other 
Verses,  Certain  things  here,  both  in  blank 
verse  and  lyric  forms,  must  awaken  the 
enthusiasm  of  any  lover  of  fine  poetry. 
They  are  to  his  verse  what  Weir  of  Her- 
miston  is  to  his  fiction  —  a  noble  culmina- 
tion of  his  powers.  A  number  of  these 
poems  are  to  be  associated  because  of  a 
common  melancholy  of  sentiment.  As  if 
prescient  of  the  not  far  distant  end,  the 
singer  longs  himself  back  to  Scotland, 
broods  on  old  ways  and  days  ;  he  an  exile 


26  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

fain  to  return  there,  at  least  to  die.  As 
strong  a  piece  of  blank  verse  as  he  has 
ever  written,  and  one  of  the  stateliest  yet 
most  touching  in  modern  poetry,  is  an  em- 
bodiment of  this  feeling  —  that  beginning 
"The  tropics  vanish," 

with  its  infinitely  pathetic  close  : 

"  The  voice  of  generations  dead 
Summons  me,  sitting  distant,  to  arise, 
My  numerous  footsteps  nimbly  to  retrace, 
And,  all  mutation  over,  stretch  me  down 
In  that  denoted  city  of  the  dead." 

Akin  to  this  is  the  apostrophe  to  Sidney 
Colvin,  where  he  begs  his  friend,  entering 
the  British  Museum  to  begin  his  daily 
toil,  to  send  a  thought  to  the  South  Seas, 
"  so  far,  so  foreign,"  and  the  beautifully 
tender  To  my  Old  Familiars,  in  which  the 
poet  asseverates  his  belief  that,  in  the 
very  article  of  death,  the  scenes  of  home, 
"  the  emptiness  of  youth," 

«« Filled  with  the  sound  of  footsteps  and  that  voice 
Of  discontent  and  rapture  and  despair, 

will  seize  on   his  mind  and  blot  out  all 
else. 

For    sheer     music-making,    who    has 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON         27 

wrought  lyrics  more  infectious  than  Bright 
is  the  Ring  of  Words  and  In  the  Highlands^ 
in  the  Country  Places  ?  There  is  a  con- 
summate perfection  in  such  work  that 
associates  its  writer  with  Poe  and  Swin- 
burne ;  the  loveliness  of  it  is  not  for  the 
moment's  pleasure  —  it  haunts  and  clings. 
Stevenson's  creed  is  as  nobly  expressed  in 
the  following  as  is  Kipling's  in  the  Envoy, 
which  closes  'The  Seven  Seas: 


YOUTH    AND    LOVE. 

Once  only  by  the  garden  gate 
Our  lips  we  joined  and  parted. 

I  must  fulfil  an  empty  fate 
And  travel  the  uncharted. 

Hail  and  farewell  !     I  must  arise, 
Leave  here  the  fatted  cattle, 

And  paint  on  foreign  lands  and  skies 
My  Odyssey  of  battle. 

The  untented  Kosmos  my  abode, 

I  pass,  a  wilful  stranger : 
My  mistress  still  the  open  road 

And  the  bright  eyes  of  danger. 

Come  ill  or  well,  the  cross,  the  crown, 
The  rainbow  or  the  thunder, 

I  fling  my  soul  and  body  down 
For  God  to  plough  them  under." 


28  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Stevenson's  blank  verse,  as  seen  in  the 
pieces  mentioned  and  in  other  choice  ex- 
amples, had  become  a  splendid  and  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  his  literary  power.  It 
possesses  a  Shakespearean  virility  and 
felicity  of  diction,  and  a  varied  music 
through  the  skilful  shifting  of  the  caesura 
and  an  inerrant  gift  for  tone-color,  which, 
on  the  technical  side,  made  it  admirable. 
Then,  for  thought-stuff,  it  embodies,  as  I 
have  said,  the  essential  Stevenson,  the 
Stevenson  seen  in  Pulvis  et  Umbra ;  a 
brooding,  analytic,  modern  mind,  conscious 
of  the  awful  antinomies  of  existence,  yet 
hanging  on  to  a  shred  of  hope,  courageous 
in  the  face  of  an  apparently  heartless  fate. 
Intellectually,  he  was  with  J.  A.  Symonds, 
Richard  Jefferies,  Leslie  Stephen,  W.  E. 
Henley, — an  agnostic;  temperamentally, 
artistically,  an  optimist — or  at  least,  like 
George  Eliot,  a  meliorist. 

Then,  still  thinking  of  the  poems  which 
outbreathe  nostalgia,  that  addressed  to 
Crockett  deserves  a  high  place  among 
the  rhymed  pieces : 

"  Blows  the  wind  to-day,  and  the  sun  and  the  rain 

are  flying ; 
Blows  the  wind  on  the  moors  to-day  and  now." 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON         29 

Again  comes  the  deep  desire,  the  refrain 
recurrent  in  so  much  of  the  latest  utter- 
ance: 

"  Be  it  granted  to  me  to  behold  you  again  in  dying, 
Hills  of  home  ! ' ' 

till  the  sympathetic  reader  is  chilled  with 
the  thought  that  his  heartfelt  longing  was 
not  gratified.  That  the  minor  note  in 
these  poems  was  rooted  in  a  radical  feeling 
that  his  end  was  fast  drawing  nigh,  there 
are  many  little  signs,  some  in  The  Vailima 
Letters,  some  in  the  verse.  This  brief 
blank-verse  poem  plainly  voices  the  pre- 
sentiment : 

"The  morning  drum-call  on  my  eager  ear 
Thrills  unforgotten  yet ;  the  morning  dew 
Lies  yet  undried  along  my  field  of  noon. 
But  now  I  pause  at  whiles  in  what  I  do 
And  count  the  bell,  and  tremble  lest  I  hear 
(My  work  untrimmed)  the  sunset  gun  too  soon." 

Among  the  lyrics,  what  a  noble  poem  is 
Tropic  Rain,  with  its  leaping  measures,  its 
onomatopoetic  effects,  and,  more  than  all, 
its  brave  resolution  to  see  good  in  evil, 
blenching  at  naught.  That  final  stanza 
surely  is  one  of  the  most  satisfying,  most 
uplifting  in  verse  of  our  time : 


3o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"And  methought  that  beauty  and  terror  are  only  one, 

not  two ; 
And    the   world    has  room    for    love   and   death  and 

thunder  and  dew  ; 

And  all  the  sinews  of  Hell  slumber  in  summer  air  ; 
And  the  face  of  God   is  a   rock,  but  the   face  of  the 

rock  is  fair. 

Beneficent  streams  of  tears  follow  the  finger  of  pain, 
And  out  of  the  cloud  that  smites  beneficent  rivers  of 

rain." 

Or  look  at  Mater  Triumphant,  a  superb 
thing  of  a  verity,  destined  to  thrill 
mothers  many  like  a  trumpet-blast.  The 
whole  epic  of  maternity  is  expressed  in 
those  two  stanzas,  and  the  resonance  of 
the  words  carries  with  it  the  mother-pride 
in  offspring  conquering  all  weakness,  pain, 
and  fear.  In  The  Woodman  Stevenson's 
sense  of  the  might  of  nature  and  the  im- 
pudent meddling  of  man,  self-elected  lord 
of  natural  phenomena,  —  a  sentiment  also 
finely  expressed  in  prose  in  The  Vailima 
Letters,  —  is  embodied  in  a  poem  contain- 
ing much  strong,  picturesque  description 
and  an  underlying  sermon  on  struggle  as 
the  one  great  law  of  all  existence.  Every- 
thing preys  on  everything  else,  he  says, 
and  man  must  do  likewise.  This  is  the 
sterner  side  of  his  appreciation  of  the 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON          31 

century's  creed  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  The  realization  at  times  weighs 
him  down.  Yet,  following  Huxley's  sug- 
gestion that  man  must  combat,  not  imi- 
tate, the  cosmic  process,  Stevenson's 
doctrine  more  often  is  that  of  gentleness 
and  love.  In  his  most  inspired  moods 
and  utterances  he  yearns  for  a  solution 
leaving  room  for  a  belief  in  the  good. 
This  comes  out  superbly  in  what  is,  to 
my  mind,  the  greatest  poem  of  the  group, 
and  one  that  Browning  alone  can  rival. 
If  'This  were  Faith  is  indeed  Browning- 
esque  in  its  rugged  power,  its  splendidly 
nervous  lilt,  its  intense  ethical  quality. 
The  pathos  of  it  is  piercing ;  it  reveals  the 
intellectual  attitude  and  the  spiritual  state 
of  one  of  the  thoughtfullest,  bravest,  hon- 
estest  of  the  chiefs  of  literature.  In  spite 
of  having  seen  God's 

"  evil  doom 
In  Golgotha  and  Khartoum," 

he  hopes  that  the  resolve  to  play  a 
soldier's  part,  the  will  to  cling  on  to 

"The  half  of  a  broken  hope  for  a  pillow  at  night, 
That  somehow  the  right  is  the  right 

And  the  smooth  shall  bloom  from  the  rough," 


32  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

is  enough  for  justification,  even  if  faith 
can  no  farther  go  in  the  face  of  the  seem- 
ing triumph  of  anti-Christ.  The  irre- 
sistible, vibrant  sweep  of  the  stirring  cry 
shows  it  came  hot  from  the  heart,  and 
among  spiritual  registrations  in  verse  it 
must  have  a  high  place.  There  are  other 
notable  things  —  The  Lost  Occasion,  He 
Hears  with  Gladdened  Heart  the  Thunder •, 
and  the  final  Evensong,  instinct  with  a 
tranquil  resignation,  a  "  twilight  piece,"  — 
among  these  late  poems,  with  what  may 
be  called  the  "essential  Stevenson"  in 
them.  Premonitions  of  the  end  come 
frequently  during  the  last  year,  but,  in 
spite  of  the  wish,  when  the  mood  was  on 
him,  to  revisit  friends  and  the  homeland, 
with  the  feeling  that  it  were  good  to  lie 
there,  once  at  least  it  came  to  him  that  his 
Samoan  isle  was  no  ill  abiding-place  for 
his  body.  In  reading  An  End  of  Travel, 
with  its  striking  fifth  line,  one  is  comforted 
that  he  had  the  journey-end  herein  imag- 
ined and  limned  in  lovely  verse: 

"  Let  now  your  soul  in  this  substantial  world 

Some  anchor  strike.      Be  here  the  body  moored  ; 

This  spectacle  immutably  from  now 

The  picture  in  your  eye  ;  and  when  time  strikes, 


ROBERT   LOUIS    STEVENSON         33 

And  the  green  scene  goes  on  the  instant  blind, 
The  ultimate  helpers,  where  your  horse  to-day 
Conveyed  you,  dreaming,  bear  your  body  dead." 

It  must  be  a  solace  to  every  true  lover  of 
Stevenson  that  in  his  case  the  green  scene 
did,  literally,  go  on  the  instant  blind,  so 
that  he  and  his  were  spared  the  droning 
misery  of  a  long  sickness. 

The  world  will  not  let  die  such  imagina- 
tive writing  as  is  contained  in  this  precious 
addendum  to  the  verse  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson.  Noble  literature  it  is,  and 
very  revelatory  of  the  man,  intensely  auto- 
biographic. The  poems  make  clearer  the 
good  fight  he  fought,  the  captain  he  was, 
true  to  his  own  exhortation  : 

"bid  me  play 
The  hero  in  the  coming  day  !  " 

VI 

Coelum  non  animum.  To  change  one's 
sky  is  not  to  change  one's  mind  about 
Stevenson  or  his  work.  This  meditation 
upon  him  was  begun  amidst  the  hustle 
and  roar  of  a  great  city.  The  tragic  cries 
of  newsboys  hawking  war  "extras"  ruf- 
fled the  hours.  As  if  in  consonance  with 


34  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

political  events,  the  skies  were  sullen,  the 
weather  had  a  bleak,  untimely  countenance. 
All  was  unrest,  struggle,  dubiety.  I  finish 
it  in  the  divine  promise  of  a  soft,  bright 
May  day  far  up  in  the  New  Hampshire 
hill-country.  The  tender  spring-green  is 
on  bush  and  tree,  the  air  odorous  with 
budding  things.  But,  tested  here  or 
there,  Stevenson's  power  abides :  he  is 
not  for  a  certain  mood  or  environment 
alone.  The  full  appreciation  of  him  is 
an  esoteric  matter :  granted.  One  can 
laud  his  technic  and  admit  his  gifts,  yet 
leave  the  choicest  unsuspected.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  admiration  errs  it  also  testi- 
fies to  power.  The  use  of  superlatives  in 
critical  appreciation  has  a  sort  of  justifica- 
tion ;  for  the  superlative  is  but  the  posi- 
tive degree  of  the  emotions.  Yet  it  would 
seem  to  a  contemporary  that  there  is  in 
him  something  of  the  classic,  by  virtue  of 
which  he  is  likely  to  persist  as  an  author 
of  unfading  attraction.  For  he  has  offered 
two  most  acceptable  hostages  to  Time : 
an  impeccable  art  and  a  character  piquant, 
wholesome,  distinctive,  and  strong. 


The  Democratic  and  Aristocratic  in 
Literature 


THE   DEMOCRATIC  AND   ARIS- 
TOCRATIC IN   LITERATURE 


I 

TT  is  one  of  Time's  curious  paradoxes 
-^  that  poetry,  originally  most  popular  and 
democratic  of  literary  products,  should 
come  to  be  regarded  as  farthest  removed 
from  common  interest  and  apprehension. 
In  the  history  of  all  peoples  the  dawn  of 
the  artistic  expression  gives  us  folk-made 
epics ;  and  ballads,  which  are  epics  in 
little,  are  sung  by  the  untutored  and  the 
illiterate  of  the  race.  Homer,  Beowulf, 
the  Norse  Sagas  and  Eddas,  the  German 
Hildebrand,  the  Finnish  Kalevala,  are  not 
the  work  of  the  self-conscious  litterateur 
armed  cap-a-pie  with  technique  and  appeal- 
ing to  an  audience  limited  to  those  of 
somewhere  the  same  degree  of  culture. 
Nay,  rooting  in  the  dance  and  the  real 
music  of  instruments,  testifying  to  the 
universal  love  of  story-telling  and  for 


38  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

rhythmic  intervals,  these  earlier  monu- 
ments are  no  more  literary,  in  the  modern 
sense,  than  was  Pippa  when  morning-glad 
she  carolled  her  dew-pearl  of  a  lyric. 

Many  of  these  old  poems,  indeed,  were 
not  for  centuries  written  down,  and  so 
were  not  literary  in  the  derivational  mean- 
ing of  the  word.  The  idea  of  the  written 
song  and  story  is  a  secondary  one,  and  in 
a  way  unfortunate,  obscuring,  as  it  does, 
the  thoroughly  popular  origin  of  these 
people-births.  Professor  Jebb  notes  this 
in  respect  of  Greek  poetry.  "  Writing," 
he  says,  "  was  indeed  the  instrument  by 
which  the  poems  were  preserved  and  trans- 
mitted. .  .  .  But  it  belonged  to  the 
very  essence  of  all  the  great  poetry  that  it 
appealed  to  hearers  rather  than  to  readers. 
The  Greeks  of  the  classical  period  were 
eager  listeners  and  talkers  ;  they  delighted 
in  lively  conversation  and  subtle  discus- 
sion, but  they  were  not  great  students  of 
books.  What  they  felt  in  regard  to  the 
poet  can  be  best  understood  by  comparing 
it  with  the  feeling  which  not  they  alone, 
but  all  people,  have  in  regard  to  the  orator 
and  the  preacher."  This  will  take  some 
superficial  students  of  the  noblest  litera- 


DEMOCRATIC   IN   LITERATURE      39 

ture  of  antiquity  with  surprise ;  yet  it  is 
not  only  true  of  Greece,  but  of  all  early 
literatures. 

"  Poetry  is  the  mother-tongue  of  man," 
said  a  great  German  critic  ;  and  the  remark 
is  far  less  figurative  than  at  first  appears. 
Every  child,  with  its  fondness  for  Mother 
Goose  jingles  and  wonder-tales,  reminds 
the  thoughtful  man  of  the  childhood  of 
the  race,  when  ratiocination  was  not,  and 
song  was  more  natural  than  syllogism. 
Emotional  speech  (and  poetry  par  excellence 
comes  under  the  rubric)  antedates  the  more 
intellectual,  non-emotional  speech  of  man 
by  centuries,  each  nation  following  a  uni- 
versal law  of  evolution  and  developing  its 
literature  in  accordance  therewith.  It  is 
with  this  in  mind  that  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
blames  those  who  "  inveigh  against  Poetry," 
because  they  "  seek  to  deface  that  which 
in  the  noblest  nations  and  languages  that 
are  known  hath  been  the  first  light-giver 
to  ignorance,  and  first  nurse,  whose  milk 
little  by  little  enabled  them  to  feed  after- 
wards of  tougher  knowledges." 

Nobody  would  deny  that  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  forefathers  were  in  manner  of  life, 
and  because  of  their  stage  of  development, 


4o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

a  practical,  utilitarian  folk.  Yet  the  Old 
English  bard  who  stood  in  the  hall  and, 
harp  at  breast,  chanted  the  hero-deeds  of 
the  king  was  a  personage  hardly  second  in 
importance  to  the  chief  himself.  He  was 
not  regarded  by  the  men  of  the  clan,  the 
retainers  in  their  armor  gathering  about 
the  scald  to  hearken  and  hear  his  song,  as 
a  moonstruck,  effeminate  individual,  to  be 
tolerated  at  the  best  —  patronized  rather 
than  approved.  Contrariwise,  his  place  of 
honor  was  assured,  his  position  enviable 
for  its  emoluments  and  distinction.  The 
direct  and  cogent  effect  of  his  appeal  upon 
those  rough  warriors,  feasting  after  their 
fight,  was  well  understood;  the  bard  stirred 
them  to  prowess,  and  was  the  expres- 
sion of  their  battle-field  deeds  and  aspira- 
tions. The  most  matter-of-fact  weapon- 
men  would,  we  may  suppose,  never  have 
dreamed  of  questioning  the  poet's  func- 
tion in  this  sort,  or  of  belittling  his  pro- 
fession and  place  in  their  social  life.  His 
relation  thereto  was  as  immediate  as  was 
the  blacksmith's ;  while  his  rank  was  such 
as  to  give  him  exceptional  dignity  and 
prominence. 

Poetry,  as  Vico  declared,  was  the  first 


DEMOCRATIC   IN  LITERATURE      41 

form  of  wisdom — the  wisdom  that  was 
felt  and  imagined,  not  thought  and 
reasoned ;  hence  the  poet  was  not  the 
dreamer  so  much  as  the  sage  and  inter- 
preter of  the  people  to  the  people  —  a 
democratic  function,  and  one  to  be  com- 
prehended by  all.  The  modern  attitude, 
popular  if  not  critical,  toward  verse — we 
prefer  to  dub  in  this  dubious  fashion  all 
present-day  product  which  has  not  through 
fame  been  adjudicated  the  rank  of  poetry 
—  is  to  be  explained,  first  by  the  fact  that 
reasoned  thought,  not  emotional  thought, 
is  generally  regarded  as  the  vehicle  for  the 
conveyance  of  wisdom  ;  and  second,  by  the 
false  distinction  set  up  by  the  tyranny  of 
the  written  and  later  the  printed  word, 
making  rhythm  and  rhyme  the  business  of 
the  cultured  few,  and  adjuncts  of  thought 
and  feeling  unrelated  to  the  popular  mind 
and  heart.  It  is  not  unnatural  that  as 
society  becomes  civilized,  with  the  birth  of 
institutions,  the  division  of  occupations, 
and  the  rise  of  reflective  differentia  in  all 
directions,  incidental  to  a  more  self-con- 
scious and  sophisticated  age,  intellectual 
processes  and  results  should  come  to  be 
regarded  as  of  more  authority  and  value 


42  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

than  emotional  states  and  the  spontaneous 
product  of  feeling.  In  truth,  this  slow 
shift  of  ideal  is  always  the  condition  and 
the  measure  of  natural  evolution  into 
higher  social  life.  Yet  it  may  be  that  in 
the  course  of  time,  when  reflection 
threatens  to  swamp  creation,  it  is  fitting  to 
call  a  halt  —  to  remind  a  people  blase  with 
the  consciousness  of  the  mechanism  of  all 
things  that  the  disestimation  of  man's 
natural,  emotive  side  is  dangerous,  and 
can  be  carried  too  far;  it  may  choke  great 
creative  efforts,  hush  the  divine  sound  of 
song.  Nay,  it  may  further  be  said  that 
the  modern  world  is  now  in  a  mood  to 
react  in  favor  of  spontaneity ;  sick  of  the 
fetish-worship  of  mere  intellect,  it  gladly 
welcomes  the  childlike  qualities  of  the 
unsophisticate  heart.  The  present  craze 
for  folk-poets,  voicing  in  the  language  of 
the  commonalty  the  popular  needs  and 
ideals,  makes  for  this  conclusion ;  so  too 
does  the  diligent  study  of  the  people  songs 
and  ballads  of  Europe  and  the  East. 
Modern  psychological  research  leads  the 
same  way,  teaching  that  the  emotions  of 
humanity  play  a  larger  part,  and  a  more 
fruitful,  in  our  growth  than  the  mere  intel- 
lectuals, and  are  of  more  ancient  lineage. 


DEMOCRATIC   IN   LITERATURE      43 

One  recalls  Lecky's  deep  line,  "  We 
owe  more  to  our  illusions  than  to  our 
knowledge."  It  is  the  very  man  surfeited 
with  philosophy,  science,  and  history  who 
flies  to  poetry  for  a  breath  of  the  glad, 
young,  irresponsible  dawn  of  the  world. 
And  so,  mayhap,  by  learning  the  true 
place  and  power  of  song  and  the  true  valid- 
ity of  instinct,  all  classes  may  be  brought 
back  to  a  realization  of  its  democratic 
nature.  It  has  been  overlooked  that  the 
true  barrier  which  divides  humble  from 
high,  the  illiterate  from  the  literati,  is  not 
such  a  naive  child  of  feeling  as  Poetry,  but 
the  stern,  cold  younger  brother,  Ratiocina- 
tion. Thought  is  essentially  aristocratic ; 
emotion  is  democratic  the  globe  over; 
one  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole 
world  kin.  And  song,  above  everything 
else,  is  the  direct  and  impulsive  issue  of 
emotion.  If  the  arbitrary  and  accidental 
nature  of  literature  —  meaning  thereby  the 
written  word  —  once  be  securely  lodged 
in  mind,  the  truth  as  to  the  royal  yet 
popular  part  played  by  the  emotions  in 
instinctive  creation  will  be  more  widely 
apprehended. 

Yet  how  surely  is  literature,  as  thus  ex- 


44  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

plained,  a  people-product,  still  caj 
however  much  it  may  have  been  appro- 
priated by  the  select  and  made  to  seem 
almost  a  caste  privilege,  of  being  a  joy  to 
all  ;  how  surely  is  poetry,  most  plebeian 
of  literary  divisions  in  birth  and  upbring- 
ing, a  form  to-day  for  the  most  unreserved 
and  general  acceptance,  if  the  world  but 
will ;  the  hard-and-fast  line  which  marks 
off  the  literary  from  common  folk  and 
common  interests  is  an  artificial  one. 

This  misconception  of  literature  in  gen- 
eral, and  of  verse  in  particular,  is  to  be 
overcome  mainly  in  two  ways  :  by  a  broader 
and  more  wholesome  appeal  to  humanity 
on  the  part  of  the  makers  of  literature ; 
and  by  the  cultivation  of  their  emotional 
and  imaginative  natures  by  the  so-called 
practical  community.  The  blame  of  the 
present  state  of  things  certainly  lies  with 
the  litterateurs  themselves  in  some  meas- 
ure. A  movement  like  that  of  the  French 
Symbolist  school  of  poets  tends  to  beget 
the  impression  that  poetry  is  a  vague, 
unrelated  maundering  of  sound,  color,  and 
suggestion  in  language,  utterly  outside  of 
the  realities  of  life.  "  Take  -  a  few  ad- 
verbs, conjunctions,  prepositions,  substan- 


DEMOCRATIC   IN   LITERATURE      45 

tives,  and  adjectives,"  says  a  distinguished 
French  singer  of  another  and  nobler  school, 
"  shake  them  all  up  together,  and  you  will 
have  symbolism ; "  and  this  is  hardly  an 
exaggeration  of  some  of  the  recent  work 
done  under  that  name.  It  has  been  a 
fashion  in  more  than  one  country  to  deem 
literature  meritorious  in  exact  proportion 
as  it  was  recondite,  obscure,  precious,  or 
narrow.  Let  literature  become  exclusive 
or  technical,  and  the  breath  of  life  goes 
out  of  it,  whatever  the  temporary  activity 
into  which  it  may  be  galvanized.  No  one 
can  wonder  that  plain  people  are  given 
pause  before  the  meaningless  rhythmic 
rhapsodies  of  Swinburne  or  the  occult 
mysticism  of  a  Mallarme';  it  would  be  an 
egregious  mistake  to  fly  to  the  conclusion 
that  such  folk  are  atrophied  on  the  side 
of  emotional  literature.  On  the  contrary, 
they  will  be  quick  to  respond  to  the  poem 
or  story  which  has  clear  thought,  true  feel- 
ing, and  a  sane  atmosphere.  The  trouble 
with  much  of  current  verse  is,  that  it 
substitutes  empty  art,  or  metaphysics,  or 
specialization,  or  the  hyper-refinements 
of  a  finicky,  lop-sided  culture  for  the 
wholeness  and  heartiness  of  more  natural 


46  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

conditions.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  if  our 
writers  cultivate  a  sound  habit  of  body  and 
a  pure  habit  of  mind,  these  abuses  and 
effeminacies  which  bring  their  art  into  ill- 
repute,  and  surely  make  misunderstand- 
ings, will  die  from  disuse.  A  sick  m.an  in 
literature,  who  lets  his  sickness  get  into  his 
work,  is  not  a  boon,  but  a  nuisance.  Meet 
the  age  half  way,  O  man  of  letters  ;  realize 
the  dignity  and  breadth  of  your  calling ; 
reckon  it  as  manly  to  be  nothing  less  than 
vital  and  vigorous  in  your  work,  eschewing 
the  night-side  of  your  craft  as  too  patho- 
logical for  humanity's  profit  or  your  own 
well-being  !  So  will  you  have  done  your 
part,  and  may  rest  from  your  labors  satis- 
fied that  your  talent  has  not  been  wasted, 
and  sure  that  your  generation  will  not  be 
thankless. 

But  on  the  side  of  the  public,  too,  there 
is  a  duty.  This  may  be  expressed  by  say- 
ing that  common  folk  (and  the  world  in 
general  makes  no  pretence  to  be  outside 
this  category)  must  cultivate  the  higher- 
practical  ;  the  practical  which  ministers  to 
the  heart  and  soul,  and  so  to  nobler  liv- 
ing, while  it  may  be  impractical  so  far  as 
material  and  immediate  gain  is  concerned. 


DEMOCRATIC   IN   LITERATURE      47 

People  at  large  favor  appeals  to  their 
psychical  natures  ;  they  enjoy  stories,  songs, 
scenery,  art  which  reproduces  and  idealizes 
all  that  side  of  life.  Scratch  a  Christian- 
ized Turk,  it  is  said,  and  you  will  find  a 
Mohammedan ;  scratch  a  practical  man, 
and  you  will  find  a  big  boy  responsive  to 
the  things  of  the  spirit,  though  maybe 
ashamed  to  own  it.  Hence  the  men  and 
women  for  whom  sound,  pure-hearted 
literature  is  written  are,  as  a  rule,  quite 
ready  to  meet  it  half  way.  They  must 
not  be  slow  to  encourage  what  is  given 
them  of  sweet  and  inspirational  ;  nor  must 
they  be  tricked  into  the  fallacious  modern 
notion  that  emotion  is  puerile  and  waste 
time,  that  intellectual  wrestling  is  the  most 
glorious  outcome  of  latter-day  develop- 
ment. So  far  is  this  last  from  being  true 
that  all  genuine  culture  (as  contradistin- 
guished from  knowledge)  is  a  thing  of 
the  emotional  and  imaginative  parts  of 
human  consciousness.  Some  other  modern 
nations  —  the  Germans,  for  example  — 
are  nearer  the  right  in  their  frank  avow- 
ment  of  the  worth  of  sentiment  and  the 
prominence  in  daily  life  they  give  to  music 
—  above  all  other  arts  offspring  of  the 


48  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

feelings.  A  public,  a  people,  which  does 
not  count  as  ill  spent  an  hour  stolen 
from  the  workaday  world  to  listen  to  a 
symphony  concert  or  a  reading  from  the 
poets  is  the  only  fruitful  environment  for 
the  artist  in  all  those  arts  which  are  indis- 
solubly  bound  by  the  kin-tie  of  creative 
emotion.  Withdraw  the  audience,  and 
the  makers  of  art  and  literature  fatten  on 
their  own  idiosyncrasies,  become  decadent, 
symbolic,  or  whatever  be  the  descriptive 
phrase  naming  the  fad  of  the  fleeting  day. 
With  these  inter-relations  between  poetry 
and  the  public  realized,  with  the  demo- 
cratic birth  of  the  former  set  before  the  eyes 
and  brought  home  to  the  consciousness  by 
argument  and  illustration,  it  should  not  be 
Utopian  to  hope  for  a  reinvestiture  of 
verse  in  the  suffrages,  not  of  a  class,  but 
of  a  people,  the  result  being  greater  joy- 
ance  and  a  swifter  progress  in  the  ameliora- 
tions and  upliftings  of  our  civilization. 

II 

There  is  always  a  reverse  side  to  human 
shields :  we  must  touch  this  topic  in  another 
aspect  ere  we  leave  it.  While  the  fact  of 


DEMOCRATIC   IN   LITERATURE 


49 


democratic  origin  and  the  popular  nature  of 
literature  and  of  its  highest  division,  verse, 
is  perfectly  true  and  in  need  of  reiteration, 
it  happens,  nevertheless,  that  it  is  possible 
to  lay  too  much  stress  upon  the  naive 
folk-element  in  letters,  to  the  obscuration 
of  truth.  At  times,  and  especially  in  an 
over-cultured  and  reflective  age,  a  sort  of 
preciosity  is  thrown  around  a  literary  peo- 
ple-product, and  the  suppressed  premise 
appears  to  be  a  belief  that  all  virtue  lies  in 
the  haphazard  outcome  of  non-literary  and 
careless  workers  in  a  primitive  art.  That 
the  breath  of  life  is  often  in  such  work, 
and  absent  from  the  polished  efforts  of  self- 
conscious  poetasters  and  essay-mongers  may 
be  readily  conceded ;  but  it  is  not  the  less 
a  fact  that  art  is  long,  a  slow,  tortuous  evo- 
lution moving  from  crude  to  perfect,  and 
from  the  childishly,  monotonously  simple 
to  the  fascinatingly  complex.  Its  latter 
end  is  better  than  its  first. 

The  earlier  and  more  artless  product  of 
a  given  nation,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind, 
has  a  dual  value,  to  be  separated  carefully 
into  its  component  parts  in  any  fruitful 
analysis.  First,  there  is  its  historical  sig- 
nificance, calling  for  our  appreciation  as  a 


5o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

link  in  a  chain,  or  as  a  comparatively  unim- 
portant parent  of  a  greater  offspring.  And 
then,  second,  there  is  its  value  as  literature 
per  se,  aside  from  all  question  of  evolu- 
tional place  and  importance  in  a  line  of 
causation.  Too  often  these  tests  are  con- 
fused, and  much  cloudy  or  wild  criticism 
results.  For  example :  the  immense 
amount  of  research  and  critical  judgment 
which  have  been  expended  upon  the  ballad 
forms  of  their  older  native  literatures,  by 
English  and  German  scholars  respectively, 
is  right  and  proper  when  the  historic  posi- 
tion of  the  ballad  is  in  view,  but  would  be 
almost  absurd  if  the  investigation  were 
for  literary  excellence  alone ;  and,  in  con- 
sequence, one  notices  a  fetish  worship  of 
these  rough,  amorphous  attempts  at  song 
and  narration,  among  people  who  ignore 
the  merits  of  modern  work  in  the  same 
genre  infinitely  superior  in  all  particulars 
which  go  to  make  poetry. 

The  story  of  the  modern  attitude  toward 
the  Elizabethan  drama  is  again  an  illus- 
tration. For  a  while  it  was  neglected  as 
rude  and  contemptible;  even  the  apprecia- 
tion of  a  Dryden  or  a  Pope  being  touched 
with  the  condescension  of  one  viewing  the 


DEMOCRATIC    IN   LITERATURE      51 

product  from  a  superior  height.  But  with 
the  present  century  we  get  a  truer  aper$u, 
and  the  play-making  of  Shakespeare  and 
his  fellows  is  hailed  as  the  Golden  Age  of 
our  native  drama.  In  the  superlatives  of 
praise  now  deemed  proper  for  the  latter- 
day  critic  in  treating  of  this  product  lurks 
a  peril  for  those  who  read  as  they  run,  and 
perhaps  for  the  critic-class  itself.  Those 
who  take  their  opinions  at  second-hand  will 
conclude  that  because  the  greatest  poetry 
of  our  tongue  was  written  by  the  matchless 
Shakespeare,  by  Marlowe  of  the  mighty 
line,  sweet-toned  Ford,  mournful  Webster, 
and  the  rest  of  the  seventeenth-century 
immortals,  —  because  their  dramatic  output 
is  constantly  and  critically  referred  to  as 
standing  by  itself,  the  chief  glory  of  our 
native  literature,  —  therefore  the  best  play- 
making  in  our  literary  history  was  done 
between  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  the 
second  James.  And  this  conclusion  would 
be  an  egregious  mistake.  As  literature, 
that  virile  and  flamboyant  product  is  doubt- 
less above  all  else  before  and  since;  but 
as  drama  regarded  as  a  form  distinct  from 
other  forms,  and  having  a  technique  of  its 
own,  the  later  work  of  Sheridan  and  Gold- 


52  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

smith,  say,  or  far  more  that  of  Ibsen,  is 
superior  by  an  infinity  of  stage-craft  and 
technical  art.  Yet  so  loosely  has  the  un- 
bounded laudation  of  the  Elizabethans 
been  construed  that  even  this  statement, 
precise  as  to  fact  and  mild  in  manner,  may 
seem  to  some  whimsical  or  iconoclastic. 
Great  as  imaginative  literature,  great  indeed 
as  drama  when  compared  with  the  prece- 
dent miracles  and  mysteries,  horse-farce 
and  stilted  classicalities,  out  of  which  it 
evolved,  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  his 
mates  are  not  good  in  the  sense  and  to  the 
degree  that  those  of  Sardou,  Ibsen,  Pinero, 
and  Sudermann  are  good.  In  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  play  as  an  organic  form  in 
literature,  these  later  men  stand  on  a  van- 
tage-ground and  are  of  the  sort  to  make 
use  of  it.  We  have  here,  in  short,  the 
confusion  arising  from  the  subtle  power 
exercised  by  a  mighty,  but  relatively  inar- 
tistic art-product,  to  which  is  imputed  a 
vicarious  virtue  by  reason  of  youth  and 
unsophistication  ;  because  it  is  more  "  spon- 
taneous," less  consciously  articulated. 
Had  Shakespeare,  it  is  said,  weighed  and 
pruned  and  filed  his  figures,  we  should 
have  had  fewer  pleonasms  and  euphuisms 


DEMOCRATIC    IN   LITERATURE      53 

perchance,  but  less  authentic  raptures  as 
well.  The  fallacy  of  the  folk-cult  is  here, 
though  in  modified  form.  Shakespeare, 
the  Elizabethans  at  large,  were  great  liter- 
ary creators  and  at  times  great  artists ;  and 
their  most  pronounced  triumphs  will  be 
found  to  be  at  one  inevitably  with  their 
truest  art  —  a  significant  fact.  It  is  un- 
philosophic  to  deify  the  untutored  side  of 
their  power  as  if  therein  lay  the  secret  of 
all  its  potency  and  charm. 

That  there  is  a  popular  quality,  a  wild, 
natural  music,  in  much  of  the  early  effort 
in  the  literary  evolution  of  a  race  cannot 
be  gainsaid.  At  the  same  time,  this 
simple  truth  may  be  —  nay,  is  —  elevated 
into  a  doctrine,  with  the  result  of  blinding 
us  to  relative  excellencies,  and  putting  a 
more  developed  and  finer  art  under  a 
cloud.  Literature,  one  must  be  ever  re- 
peating, is  an  art  primarily  and  chiefly ;  it 
is  extremely  doubtful  if  the  songs  and 
ballads  of  the  most  unsophisticate  age 
which  history  records  were  the  output  of 
pure  inspiration,  with  no  thought  of  manner 
or  form.  Merely  because  we  fall  in  with 
a  cruder  product  does  not  at  all  prove 
spontaneity :  it  indicates  only  that  the  art 


54  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

is  less  defined  and  positive;  the  inspira- 
tion is  a  matter  for  subjective  tests.  Many 
early  literatures,  once  ranked  as  crude 
and  undeveloped,  now  are  known  to  be 
thoroughly  artistic :  thus,  it  used  to  be  a 
stock  remark  in  text-books  of  English 
literature  to  call  the  Anglo-Saxon  poetry 
rough  and  barbarous.  To-day  every 
student  of  it  is  aware  that  it  is  highly 
evolved  and  consciously  artistic.  A  milk- 
maid may  labor  more  over  a  doggerel  qua- 
train bearing  the  smutted  finger-marks  of 
folk-verse  than  a  trained  poet  over  his 
sonnet,  which  by  grace  of  long  experience 
he  writes  with  no  restricting  sense  of  its 
intricacies  of  construction.  No  sudden 
gust  of  creative  energy  will  overcome 
ignorance  in  manipulating  unfamiliar 
material.  An  easy  pitfall,  this ;  and,  we 
venture  to  think,  one  into  which  many 
ballad-idolaters  have  fallen. 

To  begin  with,  then,  crudeness  and 
spontaneity  are  not  synonyms.  Next, 
since  art  is  an  organic  evolution  taking  on 
new  beauties  and  decorations  in  its  course 
of  development,  it  is  fair  to  say  that,  even 
conceding  an  increase  in  self-consciousness, 
the  gains  far  outweigh  the  losses,  and  are 


DEMOCRATIC    IN   LITERATURE      55 

to  be  rejoiced  over,  not  neglected  for 
indulgence  in  a  retrospective  wail  over  a 
more  or  less  illusory  primitive  quality, 
which  when  *  analyzed  resolves  itself  into 
two  parts  dross  to  one  of  true  metal.  The 
permanently  great  art  of  the  nations  has 
not  been  the  rough-hewn,  impulsive  efforts 
of  demi-civilized  creatures,  but  the  wise 
and  splendid  product  —  inspirational,  yet 
sternly  law-abiding  and  artistic  —  of  the 
aristocrats  of  letters — those  to  the  purple 
born.  Homer  was  not  a  lawless  maker  of 
poems,  but  a  consummate  craftsman  ;  so 
was  Dante,  so  also  Shakespeare ;  Goethe 
and  Heine,  Musset  and  Hugo,  Keats  and 
Tennyson,  —  none  of  these  lacked  spon- 
taneity, inspiration  ;  but  they  were  artists 
ad  unguem.  No  fallacy  is  more  irritating 
to  one  familiar  with  the  exigencies  and 
demands  of  art  than  that  which  fondly 
fancies  that  inspiration  spells  a  total  lack 
of  training  and  a  tyro's  spurt  of  common- 
place self-expression.  Editors  are  aware, 
to  their  daily  sorrow,  of  the  type  of  con- 
tributor who  sends  his  first  attempt  for 
publication  with  the  assurance  that  it  was 
"  inspired,"  penned  under  compulsion  in 
the  mid-watches  of  the  night,  a  thing 


56  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

unique  in  the  writer's  experience.  The 
one  sure  and  changeless  family-trait  of 
all  such  writing  is  its  worthlessness ;  and 
some  at  least  of  the  poetic  seizures  of 
the  past,  dubbed  wonderful  because  so 
delightfully  free  from  self-conscious  effort, 
belong  to  this  same  category. 

It  is  well,  then,  to  have  two  denotements 
in  mind  concerning  art :  that  in  its  finest 
and  richest  forms  it  implies  training,  tech- 
nique, evolution,  and  must  be,  therefore, 
in  a  sense,  self-knowing  and  self-judging ; 
and  again,  that  the  moment  of  creation 
is  the  moment  of  inspiration  with  Goethe 
and  Tennyson  as  with  Master  Ballad- 
Monger.  Moreover,  inspiration  for  in- 
spiration, that  of  the  trained  and  rounded 
artist  will  be  to  that  of  the  uncultured 
songman  as  gold  to  pinchbeck.  The 
worst  feature,  in  sooth,  of  this  pseudo- 
worship  of  folk-literature  is  its  affectation. 
The  refined  critic,  who  goes  into  spasms 
of  admiration  over  the  halting  stanzas 
and  bizarre  metaphors  of  some  bygone 
lyric,  is  more  often  than  not  keenly  alive 
to  all  that  makes  art  precious  and  dis- 
tinctive :  he  forces  himself  into  enthu- 
siasm here,  rather  than  honestly  feels  it; 


DEMOCRATIC   IN    LITERATURE      57 

he  has  a  tradition  of  eulogium  on  his  neck, 
like  an  Old  Man  of  the  Sea.  And  so  he 
praises  out  of  all  proportion,  and  ignores 
the  gracious  gains  and  enrichments  of 
contemporaneous  art.  No  one  well  read 
in,  and  appreciative  of,  the  best  modern 
English  verse  can  have  to  do  with  the 
early  English  ballads  without  frequent 
irritation  and  a  sense  of  manifold,  some- 
times of  amazing,  defects,  and  this  de- 
spite much  pleasure  and  stimulation. 
And  since  honesty  is  the  beginning  of 
all  wisdom,  in  literary  apperception  as 
elsewhere,  it  is  well  to  make  this  point 
pike-staff  plain. 

So  the  two  sides  of  the  matter  emerge 
from  our  to-and-fro  of  argument  and 
illustration.  We  see  (it  may  be  hoped) 
the  wrong  in  deeming  literature  aristo- 
cratic in  the  sense  that  it  is  exclusive, 
unsympathetic  to  common  needs  and 
common  moods,  the  trick  of  the  spe- 
cialist and  nothing  more,  —  this  view 
overlooking  the  unliterary,  democratic 
genesis  of  all  literature,  and  especially  of 
poetry,  its  first  and  fairest  child.  But 
we  see  too,  in  seeming  though  not  es- 
sential contradiction  to  this,  that  litera- 


5 8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

ture  is  an  art  like  any  other ;  that  the 
people-made  song  or  story  is  a  simpler, 
cruder,  less  artistic  thing  than  the  per- 
fected lyric,  novel,  or  play  into  which  it 
shall  in  the  course  of  centuries  be  de- 
veloped ;  and  that  a  false  cult  of  the  raw 
for  its  rawness'  sake  may  easily  spring 
up  and  work  mischief.  With  both  of 
these  truths  understood  and  applied,  the 
student,  the  reader,  the  amateur,  or  the 
literary  worker  is  in  a  position  to  be 
tolerant,  yet  keen  —  broadly  appreciative, 
yet  genuinely  critical.  He  will  feel  that 
literature  should  be  and  can  be  a  general 
joy,  not  a  privilege  of  the  select  few; 
and  he  will  rejoice  in  good  literature, 
whether  early  or  late,  whether  the  ballad 
made  in  the  morning  of  history  or  the 
psychologic  marvel  of  a  modern  master. 
Only  he  will  graduate  all  literary  pro- 
duction according  to  its  kind  and  degree 
of  excellence,  and  will  ever  discriminate 
between  faddish  fashions  and  the  eternal 
verities  of  Art. 


Phases  of  Fiction 


THE  PREDOMINANCE  OF  THE 
NOVEL 

¥ 

WHEN  a  certain  division  of  literature 
is,  for  historical  reasons,  dominant 
in  current  literary  production,  it  is  like  a 
drag-net  which  ensnares  divers  sorts  of 
fish.  It  attracts  not  only  the  natural 
makers  in  that  form,  but  others  whose 
gifts  fit  them  better  for  some  other  work, 
but  who  cannot  resist  the  centripetal  pull 
of  this  most  popular  activity.  Thus,  in 
the  Elizabethan  days  the  drama  was  the 
type  of  literature  which  represented  the 
age,  most  interested  the  public,  and  con- 
sequently engaged  the  main  attention  of 
the  begetters  of  literary  masterpieces. 
And  hence  it  is  that  we  meet  with  men 
like  Peele,  Greene,  and  Lodge,  and,  later, 
Cartwright  and  Shirley,  whose  call  to  play- 
making  was  not  imperative,  whose  work 
was  more  or  less  imitative.  Had  the 


6z  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

mode  of  the  day  in  letters  demanded  the 
essay  or  the  novel,  they  would  as  readily 
have  turned  in  those  directions.  Peele 
was  naturally  a  superior  controversialist, 
Lodge  could  write  so  exquisite  a  prose 
pastoral  as  Rosalind,  —  whence  Shake- 
speare drew  his  lovely  As  You  Like  It, 
—  and  Shirley  had  powers  as  a  lyrist  ex- 
ampled  in  so  dainty  a  song  as  that  entitled 
A  Lullaby. 

At  present  the  novel  is  the  all-engulf- 
ing literary  form.  Alphonse  Daudet  has 
asked  of  late  :  "  What  shall  be  the  novel, 
the  literature,  of  the  future  ?  "  —  as  if  the 
two  terms  were  co-terminous  and  inter- 
changeable. Fiction  has  made  sad  inroads 
upon  the  ancient  and  honorable  champaign 
of  Poetry ;  the  essay  is  as  naught  to  it  in 
popularity  and  applause ;  while  even  the 
stern  historian  tries  to  give  his  chronicle  of 
the  past,  of  "  old,  unhappy  far-off  things," 
a  narrative  interest,  and  some  boldly  throw 
their  history  into  the  guise  of  an  historical 
romance,  albeit  their  purpose  is  not  artistic, 
but  didactic,  —  the  imparting  of  knowledge 
rather  than  the  giving  of  pleasure.  Fic- 
tion, in  short,  is  the  modern  magnet  tow- 
ard which  all  literary  product  and  power 


PREDOMINANCE    OF   THE    NOVEL     63 

are  drawn.  That  this  predominance  is  in 
some  ways  an  evil  (despite  the  indisputable 
virtues  of  the  novel),  that  it  is  possibly 
fraught  with  danger  to  general  literary  pro- 
duction, is  a  thesis  which  will  at  least  bear 
further  amplification. 

The  injury  done  to  poetry  has  been 
alluded  to.  When  Walter  Scott,  after 
triumphing  in  narrative  and  ballad  verse, 
took  up  the  writing  of  romances  and 
charmed  all  Europe,  he  gave  English 
fiction  an  importance  and  dignity  hardly 
enjoyed  by  it  before.  Without  over- 
looking Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu's 
testimony  that  Richardson's  Pamela  wrung 
tears  from  the  chambermaids  of  all  nations, 
it  is  pretty  safe  to  say  that  with  the  Wa- 
verley  Novels  our  fiction,  as  a  distinct 
form,  gained  a  prestige  which,  in  spite  of 
fluctuations  and  what  at  present  some 
incline  to  call  a  woful  devolution,  it  has 
never  lost.  Arid  verse  has  suffered  a  pro- 
portionate decay  of  authority.  It  has  come 
to  pass  that  verse-men  adopt  a  semi-apolo- 
getic tone  in  putting  forth  their  wares,  and 
the  soi-disant  scientific  spirit  of  the  age 
tends  to  look  askance  at  such  activity. 
To  be  sure,  this  indifference  to  poetry 


64  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

may  easily  be  exaggerated.  If  the  critic 
go  back  to  any  earlier  period  of  English 
poetry,  much  the  same  influences  may 
be  detected :  the  poets  themselves  timid 
and  knee-supple ;  their  carping  judges 
aghast  at  the  dearth  of  good  work,  and 
with  their  mouths  full  of  praise  of  some 
previous  day.  Walter  Scott's  accent  in 
speaking  of  'The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  be- 
fore its  publication,  has,  for  us,  a  curi- 
ously tentative  and  deprecatory  sound. 
And  to  read  to-day  such  a  critique  as 
Peacock's  Four  Ages  of  Poetry,  wherein 
not  Scott  alone,  but  Lord  Byron,  Words- 
worth, Coleridge,  and  Southey  are  dis- 
missed with  contemptuous  paragraphs,  is 
sufficiently  amusing,  while  suggestive  of 
the  irresistible  tendency  to  belittle  the  fore- 
ground in  favor  of  the  historical  perspective 

—  a  strange  reversal  of  the  ordinary  laws 
of  composition.     But  aside  from  all  this,  it 
is  true  enough  that  contemporaneous  poetry 
is,  speaking  broadly,  tolerated  rather  than 
appraised  ;  if  the  text  of  sales  be  applied, 
the  comparatively  small  editions  of  verse 

—  the  regular  edition  being  500  volumes, 
and   limited   editions  of  less   size  being  a 
fad  of  the  time  —  show  the  same  thing, 


PREDOMINANCE    OF   THE    NOVEL     65 

from  the  publisher's  sober  point  of  view. 
Look,  too,  at  the  relative  value  set  on 
fiction  and  verse  in  the  magazines,  those 
faithful  registers  of  popular  taste.  The 
story  is  the  sine  quB  non,  the  one  literary 
form  which  must  be  supplied ;  the  qua- 
train or  sonnet  is  tucked  in  to  fill  un- 
seemly gaps  between  articles.  Its  func- 
tion is  that  of  a  tail-piece.  In  the  days 
of  good  Queen  Bess,  poetry  in  play  form 
was  the  acceptable  mode  of  literary  ex- 
pression :  there  was  then  a  happy  con- 
junction of  public  demand  and  artistic 
supply,  though  whether  they  stood  in  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  is  matter  for 
parley.  But  so  much  may  be  roundly 
affirmed  :  what  the  play  was  to  that  time, 
the  novel  is  to  this.  Those  now  writing 
verse  must  expect  and  be  content  with 
smaller  sales,  slower  reputation,  and,  in 
a  sense,  an  uncongenial  environment. 
As  a  result,  the  fictional  maelstrom  sucks 
in  some  who  in  another  day  would  have 
been  poets,  or  who,  having  the  name  of 
poets,  would  have  done  greater  work  in 
verse  than  will  ever  come  from  them  un- 
der existing  conditions.  It  is  a  curious 
query,  What  might  Kipling  have  achieved 


66  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

in  poetry  in  an  age  which  made  the  poetic 
drama  the  recognized  mode  of  expression  ? 
This,  with  two  or  three  of  his  fine  ballads 
in  mind,  to  say  nothing  of  the  dramatic 
instinct  in  his  fiction,  is  not  so  superficial 
a  suggestion  as  might  at  first  appear. 
But  born  into  these  latter-day  conditions, 
he  is  an  Uhlan  of  story- tell  ing,  who  only 
now  and  then  makes  a  side-charge  into 
the  placid  domains  of  Poesy.1 

Fiction,  again,  draws  the  natural  essayist 
away  from  his  metier.  Those  heretical 
enough  to  prefer  the  essay-work  of  Henry 
James  to  his  novels  will  think  of  him  in 
this  connection  ;  a  humorist  like  Mark 
Twain,  undoubtedly  a  teller  of  tales,  but 
hardly  a  novelist  in  the  full  modern  con- 
tent of  the  word,  is  another  exemplar. 
The  cult  of  the  analytic  in  fiction  has  led 
many  writers,  whose  forte  lay  in  such 
effects  rather  than  in  synthetic  creation, 
into  novel-making;  and,  conversely,  per- 
haps the  analytic  tendency  has  been  thus 
exaggerated,  until  it  has  culminated  in 
The  Story-That-Never-Ends.  Interest- 
ing questions  and  cross-questions  arise 

1  This  was  written,  of  course,  before  Kipling's  full  fame 
as  a  poet  had  come. 


PREDOMINANCE    OF   THE    NOVEL      67 

here.  But  the  main  contention,  that  this 
modern  maelstrom,  with  its  secret  under- 
tow, has  drawn  the  essayists  into  its  potent 
circle,  to  the  impoverishment  of  the  essay 
—  delightsome  form  made  luminous  by 
the  names  of  Montaigne,  Lamb,  Heine, 
and  Arnold  —  and,  as  well,  to  the  dubious 
improvement  of  Fiction  itself,  is  for  easy 
apprehension.  Recently,  and  in  large 
part  due  to  the  brilliant  critical  papers  of 
such  English  and  American  writers  as 
Pater,  Stevenson,  Moore,  Lang,  and  Rep- 
plier,  a  reaction  in  favor  of  the  essay  is  ob- 
servable, and  it  may  be  that  this  will  grow 
into  a  veritable  renaissance.  So  far,  how- 
ever, it  is  little  more  than  a  beginning. 
That  the  reading  of  the  older  and  standard 
essayists  has  been  checked  by  the  novel 
and  its  half-breed  ally,  the  newspaper,  can- 
not be  gainsaid. 

But  regarding  Fiction  alone,  what  are 
the  effects  of  this  autocracy  which  it  main- 
tains in  the  world  of  literature?  To  our 
thinking,  we  get  bad  novels,  and  too  many 
of  them,  because  of  it.  The  form  has  so 
supreme  a  power,  and  the  emoluments  are 
so  glittering,  that  those  who  have  it  in 
them  to  do  good  work  lash  themselves  to 


68  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

unnatural  exertions  in  order  to  answer  the 
demand,  and  sell  their  second  best  in  lieu 
of  their  best,  which  takes  more  time. 
Very  few  of  our  modern  novel-writers 
exhibit  the  conscientious  care  and  lei- 
surely method  of  Mrs.  Ward  or  Stevenson. 
The  temptation  is  great  and  the  danger 
extreme.  And  far  worse  than  this,  a  horde 
of  hangers-on  rush  into  the  field,  and  by 
their  antics,  utterly  lacking  coherence, 
with  no  raison  d'etre  to  justify  their  pres- 
ence, bring  what  is  a  gift,  an  art,  and  a 
consecrated  labor,  into  misunderstanding 
and  disrepute.  It  is  fast  coming  to  the 
point  where  a  man  who  has  not  written  a 
novel  gains  thereby  a  certain  distinction ; 
and  this  surely  is  ominous  for  the  highest 
interests  of  Fiction.  But  it  is  questiona- 
ble if  the  novel  will  remain  indefinitely  the 
dominant  type,  the  maelstrom  engulfing 
the  various  kinds  of  literary  power  and 
activity.  All  analogy  points  the  other 
way,  begetting  a  presumption  in  favor  of 
some  new  form  or  the  revival  of  an  old. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  with  a  new  im- 
pulse in  poetry  of  the  narrative  or  dra- 
matic order,  Fiction  will  find  its  elder  sister 
occupying  her  sometime  place  as  a  coequal. 


PREDOMINANCE    OF   THE    NOVEL      69 

Indeed,  the  forecast  for  the  drama,  uniting 
as  it  does  the  most  splendid  creative  liter- 
ary energy  with  action  of  the  most  direct 
and  universally  appealing  kind,  is  espe- 
cially bright.  And  the  literary  movement 
in  this  direction  of  late  suggests  an  ultimate 
shifting  in  the  relative  importance  of  those 
forms  of  literary  expression  which  in  our 
day  engage  the  interest  and  affection  of  ,< 
men. 


70  LITERARY    LIKINGS 


II 

THE      PERSISTENCE    OF     THE 
ROMANCE 

¥ 

The  now  palpable  reaction  from  the 
realistic,  so  called,  in  English  fiction  to 
the  romantic,  as  a  form  and  a  method, 
suggests  an  historical  retrospect.  The 
fact  is,  the  romance,  in  its  several  kinds, 
has  persisted  for  centuries  in  our  native 
novel,  and  its  resurgence  to-day  is  only  a 
demonstration  to  be  prophesied  from  past 
experiences  in  fictional  evolution.  Nor  is 
the  explanation  far  to  seek.  All  the 
world  loves  a  story,  as  it  does  a  lover; 
and  psychologic  interest,  the  analysis  of 
motive  and  character,  will  never  take  the 
place  of  that  objective  interest  which  cen- 
tres in  action,  situation,  and  denouement. 
Our  age  takes  more  kindly  to  such  methods 
and  motives  than  did  its  predecessors ;  in- 
deed, it  has  been  taught  to  do  so,  and  the 
novel  of  subjective  tendency  may  be  styled 
the  chosen  vehicle  of  expression.  But 
always  those  who  read  as  they  run,  and 


PERSISTENCE   OF  THE   ROMANCE     71 

the  more  critical  class  which  seeks  in  books 
illusion  from  the  workaday  world,  will 
desire  the  adventure  story  and  the  heroic 
presentment  of  human  life.  A  host  of 
people  agree  with  Balzac  that  the  writer 
of  fiction  should  strive  to  portray  society 
not  solely  as  it  is,  but  as  it  is  hoped  it  will 
be  in  that "  possibly  better  "  state  suggested 
by  present  improvement.  One  is  struck 
by  this  in  the  simple  inductive  process  of 
inquiry  among  intelligent  book-lovers; 
the  present  writer  has  found  that  a  large 
proportion  go  to  novels  for  rest  and  recrea- 
tion, rather  than  for  a  criticism  of  life  or 
aesthetic  stimulation,  least  of  all  for  spirit- 
ual profit.  If  this  last  is  to  result,  let  it 
be  unobtrusive,  by  way  of  indirection,  not 
through  the  avowed  tendenz  fiction,  seems 
to  be  the  cry. 

Text-books  are  fond  of  emphasizing 
the  birth  of  the  modern  analytic  novel 
with  Richardson  and  Fielding,  as  if  there- 
after the  whole  trend  were  toward  the 
subjective  social  study.  It  is  true  enough 
that  a  new  impulse  and  manner  were  in- 
troduced by  those  worthies ;  but  twenty 
odd  years  before  Pamela^  and  Tom  Jones, 
De  Foe's  Ro&inson  Crusoe  was  in  the 


72  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

field  to  represent  that  undying  creature, 
the  Romance;  and  if  Mr.  Kipling  and 
Mr.  Stevenson,  Mr.  Hall  Caine,  Dr. 
Doyle,  and  General  Wallace  hark  back 
to  the  seamy  Daniel  as  prototype,  he  in 
turn  derives  from  the  picaresque  tales 
that  had  gone  before,  and,  to  look  to 
origins,  is  justified  by  the  Spanish  fiction- 
ists  from  whom  our  romance  sprang.  An 
early  English  example  of  the  picaresque 
is  Nash's  'Jack  Wilton^  which,  clumsy  as 
it  is,  and  naively  childish  to  modern  taste, 
does  nevertheless  explain  De  Foe  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  penny-dreadful  on  the 
other.  Jack,  a  page  in  the  English  army 
in  France  at  the  siege  of  Tournay,  and  a 
fellow  of  infinite  gusto,  much  travel,  and 
many  escapades,  is  perhaps  the  first  pict- 
uresque rascal  in  a  genre  to  be  afterwards 
enriched  by  Dumas  and  broadened  and 
modified  by  Le  Sage,  Hugo,  Scott,  and 
Dickens.  He  is  the  father  of  harum- 
scarums,  and  he  initiates  for  all  time  the 
type  of  the  picaresque  story  —  that  divi- 
sion of  the  romance  the  essence  of  which 
lies  in  brisk,  breathless  adventuring  and  a 
lusty  enjoyment  of  life  as  incident  and 
spectacle.  Such  later  divisions,  of  course, 


PERSISTENCE    OF   THE    ROMANCE 


73 


as  the  pastoral  romance  —  early  exampled 
in  Lyly's  Euphues  and  Sidney's  Arcadia, 
and  finding  its  modern  representation  in 
Mr.  Black,  Mr.  Blackmore,  and  others 
—  and  the  bombastic  pseudo-romance 
borrowed  from  the  French  of  Scarron 
et  Cie.y  and  —  thank  Heaven  !  —  pretty 
much  dead  to-day,  swell  with  contribu- 
tory streams  the  now  stately  river  of 
romance.  But  the  adventure-tale  that 
eventuates  in  Kidnapped  and  The  Refugees 
is  to  be  tracked  down  to  Jack  Wilton, 
artless  product  of  Elizabethan  times. 

Nor,  if  we  overlook  the  mere  matter  of 
prose-form,  may  we  hesitate  to  go  farther 
back  in  looking  for  the  genesis  of  the  spirit 
and  purpose  of  the  English  romance.  We 
shall  meet  with  it  several  centuries  earlier, 
in  that  sterling,  sturdy  literary  form,  the 
ballad  ;  in  certain  of  the  verse  narratives  of 
Chaucer;  yes,  in  the  Old  English  epics 
themselves.  Other  times,  other  customs, 
and  saga,  epic,  apologue,  ballad,  or  novel 
may  be  the  chosen  vehicle  ;  but  the  liking 
for  story  is  a  constant  factor.  The  instinct 
for  romance  is  the  instinct  for  illusion,  a 
request  for  pictures  of  a  livelier  and  love- 
lier world  than  that  we  live  in  ;  it  were  fool- 


74  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

ish  not  to  expect  its  gratification  in  art  all 
along  in  the  development  of  our  literature. 
With  this  continual  outcropping,  this  cyclic 
persistence,  of  the  romance  in  English  fic- 
tion, notable  contributions  in  this  kind 
may  be  anticipated  in  the  near  future,  as  a 
rebound  from  the  deification  of  the  psycho- 
analytic. The  public  is  eager  for  it  (apply 
the  test  of  sales  in  the  case  of  recent  prom- 
inent romantic  novels)  ;  and  the  writers 
of  fiction  take  heart  for  the  attempt,  or 
by  a  natural  resilience  are  of  the  tribe  of 
Dan.  But  whether  the  movement  pro- 
duce marvels  of  romantic  composition  this 
decade  or  the  next  century,  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  the  field  will  always  be  cultivated, 
appealing  as  it  does  to  a  permanent  taste 
and  satisfying  an  inevitable  hunger.  By 
no  means  is  it  to  be  said  that  the  school  of 
Messrs.  Howells  and  James  is  in  its  de- 
cadence;  fruitful  and  important  work  is 
sure  to  come  thence,  and  its  possibilities, 
especially  in  the  domain  of  psychology, 
are  as  yet  but  half  realized.  But  it  is  well 
to  bear  down  on  the  fact  that  the  pedigree 
of  this  school  is  no  better  than,  is  indeed 
not  so  old  and  honorable  as,  that  which 
has  De  Foe  as  past  master  in  the  last 


PERSISTENCE    OF   THE    ROMANCE      75 

century,  and  is  vigorously  championed  in 
fin  de  stecle  English  letters  by  Messrs. 
Kipling  and  Stevenson. 

And  it  should  be  understood  that  this 
reaction  toward  incident  in  fiction  is  a 
phase  of  the  wider  protest  against  the  abuse 
of  that  misnamed  realism  for  which  partial- 
ism  is  a  fitter  term.  It  is  part  of  a  ten- 
dency which  has  produced  in  Paris,  the 
stronghold  of  the  opposite  influence,  a 
revival  denominated  neo-idealism,  result- 
ing in  symbolism  in  poetry  and  M. 
Wagner's  noble  trumpet-call  to  the  young 
generation.  Romanticism  is  to  idealism  in 
the  novel  what  the  garment  is  to  the  soul. 
In  this  broader  implication,  the  romance 
includes  Mrs.  Ward's  David  Grieve  and 
Mrs.  Hunt's  Ramona,  books  treating  life 
in  its  more  ideal  aims  and  relations.  The 
romance  of  the  future  will  present  such 
high  interests,  keeping  pace  with  the  evo- 
lution of  society ;  and  its  vantage-ground 
over  the  romance  of  years  agone  will  be 
that  it  is  firm-based  on  truth  to  the  phenom- 
ena of  life,  and  is  thus,  in  the  only  true 
sense,  realistic.  Nobler  in  content  and 
persistent  in  type,  the  romance,  broadly 


76  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

viewed,  may  be  regarded  as  that  form  of 
literature  which  more  than  any  other  shall 
reflect  the  aspirations  of  the  individual  and 
the  social  progress  of  the  State. 


NOVELS   AND    NOVEL-READERS       77 


III 

NOVELS  AND  NOVEL-READERS 


Just  as  the  term  father  implies  the 
correlative  term  child,  so  does  a  novel 
imply  a  novel-reader.  It  were  hard  to 
imagine  a  piece  of  fiction  without  an  audi- 
ence, even  if  the  audience  number  but  one 
and  be  furnished  by  the  author  himself. 
Readers,  then,  being  necessary,  it  touches 
the  quick  of  the  fictionist's  interest  to  in- 
quire :  What  is  the  attitude  of  the  present- 
day  patrons  of  tales  towards  the  different 
kinds  of  fiction  purveyed  for  their  delecta- 
tion? Is  the  purpose-novel  preferred,  or 
the  light  and  cynical  analytic  study,  or  the 
frankly  objective  adventure-tale  of  your 
true  romanticist  ?  Would  Mrs.  Ward  win 
the  popular  plebiscite,  or  Mr.  Benson,  or 
Messrs.  Stevenson,  Doyle,  and  Weyman? 

Of  course  a  categorical  reply  could  only 
be  made  on  the  basis  of  counting  noses : 
the  pure  mathematics  of  the  problem  will 
always  be  out  of  reach.  Still,  what  with 
the  test  of  sales,  the  talk  of  society,  and 


7 8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

the  a  posteriori  analyses  of  the  critics,  an 
opinion  of  some  solidity  may  be  attained. 
The  writer  has  made  a  point  of  conversing 
with  all  sorts  of  folk  who  care  for  fic- 
tion (and  who,  outside  of  the  absolutely 
illiterate  class,  does  not  care  for  it?),  and 
has  been  both  interested  and  instructed  by 
the  testimony  thus  derived.  Blending  the 
illumination  gained  in  this  way  with  that 
from  other  sources,  he  has  concluded  that 
novel-readers  may  be  divided,  roughly,  into 
three  classes :  first,  those  who  care  for  fic- 
tion as  art  primarily,  and  get  their  main 
pleasure  from  its  truth  to  life,  its  character 
analysis,  and  its  construction ;  second, 
those  whose  interest  centres  in  the  thesis 
of  the  book,  and  who  care  little  or  nothing 
for  form,  style,  and  other  distinctively  lit- 
erary features ;  and  third,  those  to  whom 
a  novel  is  above  all  else  a  story  —  some- 
thing to  amuse  and  charm,  an  organism 
with  movement  and  zest  of  life. 

That  division  of  novel-readers  which 
looks  for  and  relishes  to  the  full  the  art  of 
a  bit  of  fiction  is  comparatively  small,  and 
for  obvious  reasons.  Here  belong  the 
critics,  the  connoisseurs  of  literature.  To 
such  it  matters  not  so  much  if  a  story  be 


NOVELS    AND    NOVEL-READERS       79 

pleasant,  or  whether  or  not  it  teaches 
sound  morality  and  superinduces  a  better 
opinion  of  one's  fellow-men.  If  it  have 
construction,  vital  character-drawing,  and 
verisimilitude,  if  it  possesses  stylistic  dis- 
tinction and  dramatic  power,  they  are  satis- 
fied. The  analytic  student  of  the  novel 
comes  in  the  course  of  time  to  put  his 
attention  on  these  things  to  the  exclusion 
of  everything  extraneous ;  he  reads  more 
as  a  scientist  and  less  as  a  human  being. 
This  is  at  once  the  privilege  and  the 
penalty  of  the  critical  function.  It  is  only 
the  very  great  books  that  can  wrest  him 
from  this  self-conscious  and  dubious  coign 
of  vantage  and  set  him  cheek  by  jowl  with 
ordinary  humanity,  breathless  in  watching 
a  piece  of  life  and  personally  involved  in  the 
fortunes  of  the  dramatis  person*  —  in  the 
grip  of  the  sweetest  and  strongest  of  obses- 
sions. Such,  as  a  rule,  is  the  critic's  place 
and  state  of  mind.  Not  always,  even  in  his 
case,  however.  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  suf- 
fering, one  might  almost  say,  from  a  sur- 
feit of  culture,  likes  nothing  so  well  as  the 
novel  with  "  go  "  and  color  and  life,  contra- 
distinguished from  that  of  analysis  and  the 
mooting  of  problems.  Conceiving  the  end 


8o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

of  art  to  be  "pleasure,  not  edification,"  he 
makes  a  plea  for  "  the  Fijian  canons  of 
fiction,"  meaning  thereby  that  those  nai've 
natives  in  their  stories  "  tell  of  gods  and 
giants  and  canoes  greater  than  mountains, 
and  of  women  fairer  than  the  women  of 
these  days,  and  of  doings  so  strange  that 
the  jaws  of  the  listeners  fall  apart."  Mr. 
Lang,  in  short,  is  fond  of  beautiful  impos- 
sibilities in  a  novel.  But  it  is  none  the 
less  fair  to  say  that  the  critic-class,  as  such, 
reads  with  "  Art  for  art's  sake  "  perpetually 
engraven  upon  its  censorious  front.  And 
it  is  also  plain  that  the  audience  thus  fur- 
nished the  fictionist  is  so  small  as  to  be 
numerically  contemptible,  and  in  the 
vulgar  matter  of  sales  as  unimportant  as 
the  p  in  pneumonia.  To  these  profes- 
sionals of  criticism  may  be  added  a  fraction 
of  the  reading  public  which  uses  their 
method,  or  in  amateurish  fashion,  albeit 
honestly,  follows  in  their  wake.  Very 
young  persons  whose  education  has  been 
large  and  experience  limited,  and  who  for 
these  reasons  take  themselves  au  grand 
serieux,  and  are  more  or  less  self-conscious 
in  their  psychological  habitudes,  belong 
here ;  here  belong,  too,  older,  hardier,  and 


NOVELS    AND    NOVEL-READERS       81 

more  sensible  people  of  a  natural  intellect- 
ual keenness,  the  ab  ovo  analysts  of  life, 
and  of  literature  as  its  expression.  These 
swear  by  Mr.  Howells'  dicta,  and,  as  to 
quality,  are  of  the  aristoi  among  readers, 
coveted  by  all  genuine  artists.  But  neither 
of  these  subsidiary  classes  swells  the  critic- 
class,  caring  for  the  art  of  a  novel  first  of 
all,  to  proportions  invalidating  our  claim 
that  it  is  decidedly  the  smallest  of  the 
three,  and,  so  far  as  immediate  influence 
and  the  substantial  return  of  figures  is  con- 
cerned, the  least  important. 

The  second  and  larger  class  embraces 
readers  who  object  not  to  didactics  in  their 
novels.  To  them  a  polemic  in  the  guise 
of  literature  is  as  acceptable  as  a  pill,  sugar- 
coated  to  the  taste,  to  the  thorough-going 
homoeopathist.  Many  falling  into  this 
category  enjoy  literature  per  se,  to  be  sure  ; 
but  they  like  it  also  to  convey  some 
thoughtful  thesis,  preferring,  so  to  say,  the 
luxuriously  cushioned  barouche  of  fiction 
to  wrestling  with  the  same  problem  in  the 
Irish  jaunting-car  of  sociology  or  science. 
Hence  is  derived  a  good  part  of  the  au- 
dience rallying  to  the  Heavenly  'Twins 
and  A  Tellow  Aster;  or  that  which  a 


82  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

few  years  ago  took  up  arms  for  Robert 
Elsmere.  A  part,  not  the  whole,  we  must 
repeat;  because  these  tendenzgescbichten, 
as  the  Germans  call  them,  are  far  more 
than  mere  preachments  and  special  plead- 
ings ;  often  containing  the  vivid  character- 
ization of  flesh-and-blood  creatures,  the 
one  red  drop  of  human  life  which  is  pre- 
cious. But  it  is  undeniable  that  the  im- 
mense amount  of  talk  evoked  by  such 
books  had  never  been  forthcoming,  were 
they  not  a  stage  upon  which  to  display  the 
puppets  of  theory  and  argument.  Right 
here  opinions  violently  clash,  and  schools 
form  as  naturally  as  rocks  crystallize. 
Plenty  of  earnest  and  honest  devotees  of 
the  novel  will  have  it  that  art  and  story 
interest  may  be  supplied  in  a  book,  plus 
the  presentation  of  some  vital  question  of 
the  day,  adding  by  so  much  to  its  impor- 
tance and  attraction,  and  lifting  fiction,  tra- 
ditionally regarded  as  a  "  light "  division 
of  literature,  into  a  more  legitimate  place, 
until  it  ranks  with  serious  (too  often  a 
synonym  for  dull)  literature.  It  is,  in 
fact,  a  literary  cult,  at  the  present  writing, 
to  be  "  serious  "  in  the  novel ;  as  it  was  a 
social  cult,  during  the  recent  panic,  to  be 


NOVELS    AND    NOVEL-READERS       83 

poor.  It  was  the  book  more  painfully 
and  self-consciously  didactic  than  any 
other  in  English  fiction  within  several 
years  which  provoked  the  most  discussion 
—  not  critical  controversy  so  much  as  the 
more  powerful,  unpredicable  popular  inter- 
est of  society.  The  vogue  and  stimula- 
tion of  Madame  Grand's  strong  if  unequal 
and  inartistic  essay  in  the  field  of  social 
analysis  were  little  short  of  phenomenal, 
although  now,  striking  work  in  other  sorts 
of  fiction  having  since  obscured  it,  one 
thinks  of  this  study  of  the  marital  relation 
with  Villon's  refrain  rising  to  the  mind : 
"  Where  are  the  Snows  of  Yester-year  ? " 
For  a  season  it  is  even  likely  that  the 
believers  in  purpose-fiction  outnumbered 
not  only  the  critical  minority  already  char- 
acterized, but  also  the  old-fashioned  fol- 
lowers of  the  healthier  tale  whom  we  are 
to  reckon  with  under  our  third  division. 
For  a  season  only,  however,  we  should 
guess ;  there  is  a  sort  of  rabies  of  interest 
which  destroys  by  its  own  violence,  and 
already  may  be  seen  the  after-effects 
of  what  has  been  cleverly  dubbed  the 
"  woman  revolt  in  fiction."  Still,  this  in- 
terest, this  excitement,  if  temporary,  has  its 


84  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

significance,  and  goes  to  show  that  a  wider 
and  deeper  appeal  to  humankind  can  be 
made  through  the  novel,  and  will  be  made, 
—  an  appeal  touching  grave  questions  and 
the  most  sacred  relations,  —  as  perhaps 
through  no  other  form  of  the  written  word. 
It  will  not  do  to  sneer  at  tendency  in  liter- 
ature as  lying  outside  of  critical  attention. 
Terence's  line  applies  to  literature  even  as 
to  life,  and  nothing  in  fiction  that  broadly 
stirs  his  fellow  men  and  women  can  be 
alien  to  the  true  critic's  function. 

Yet  it  is  plain,  and  to  be  plainly  stated, 
that  this  popular  furore  over  a  dominant 
piece  of  purpose-fiction  tends  to  obscure 
critical  tests  and  canons.  Those  who  read 
uncritically  incline,  under  such  influence, 
to  judge  a  work  by  the  amount  of  im- 
mediate noise  and  intelligent  comment  it 
begets,  and  as  a  consequence  one  hears 
absurdly  exaggerated  encomium.  'The 
Heavenly  Twins,  for  example,  is  put  on 
a  par  with  Marcella;  the  truth  being  that 
beside  Mrs.  Ward's  finished  and  mas- 
terful work  of  art,  it  is  ill-constructed, 
false  to  life,  faulty  in  drawing,  and  terribly 
diffuse — in  fine,  the  journey-work  of  a 
brilliant  novice.  The  interest  awakened 


NOVELS   AND    NOVEL-READERS       85 

by  such  a  production  is  largely  adventi- 
tious, because  based  on  an  appeal  lying 
beyond  artistic  tests.  It  is  well  to  have 
this  clearly  in  mind  here  in  the  United 
States,  where  comparative  criticism  is  but 
locally  conceded,  and  where  for  this  reason 
a  stern  insistence  upon  the  criteria  of  artis- 
tic perfection  is  of  all  places  most  needed. 
It  is  not  cause  for  complaint  that  a  host 
of  readers,  the  palpable  majority  of  whom 
are  women,  welcome  novels  handling  with 
more  or  less  elan  the  relations  of  the  sexes  ; 
the  repression,  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  tradi- 
tions of  convenance  in  fiction,  of  all  that 
side  of  social  phenomena,  results,  as  might 
be  expected,  in  an  excess  of  curiosity  and 
excitement  which  have  their  morbid  mani- 
festations ;  but  the  residuum  of  all  this  fer- 
ment will  be  a  broader  outlook  and  a  freer 
conception  of  motifs.  If,  however,  we  do 
not  learn  to  apply  rigidly  and  with  malice 
prepense  to  any  fiction  whatsoever,  man- 
made  or  woman-begotten,  the  universal 
rules  of  art,  a  parlous  state  is  ours.  That 
section  of  society  which  elects  the  purpose- 
novel  as  its  special  pet  and  pride  may 
gratify  its  taste  under  promise  to  exempt 
none  of  this  popular  product  from  the 


86  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

• 

Rhadamanthian  judgment  by  the  which  all 
fiction  must  be  judged;  and  with  the  agree- 
ment to  keep  clearly  dissevered  in  their 
own  minds  the  appeal  of  art  and  the  appeal 
of  thought. 

The  readers  of  a  more  genial  habit  and 
a  more  traditional  standard  make  up  our 
third  and  final  class.  They  care  for  a  story 
for  the  story's  sake,  and,  bothering  not 
overmuch  if  its  likeness  to  life  be  dubious, 
go  so  far  as  to  open  arms  to  a  fine  rep- 
resentation of  the  improbable.  They  stand 
by  Balzac's  phrase  (rarely  obeyed  by  the 
master  himself)  that  the  novelist  should 
depict  the  world,  not  as  it  is,  but  as  it 
may  possibly  become.  And  it  is  this  sort 
of  folk,  we  would  contend,  which  on 
the  whole  is  the  best-balanced,  the  most 
humanistic,  and,  in  the  long  run,  the  most 
influential  among  novel-readers.  Mr. 
Howells  inclines  to  contemn  a  species 
which,  to  his  view,  still  loves  the  rattle  and 
the  woolly  horse  in  literature.  But  if  he, 
or  any  other  seeker  after  truth,  will  pursue 
the  Socratic  method,  conversing  with 
fellow-mortals  in  the  chance  jostle  of  the 
social  plexus,  he  will  get  evidence  pushing 
towards  our  conclusion.  The  fact  is  that, 


NOVELS   AND    NOVEL-READERS       87 

despite  all  our  rather  self-conscious  prating 
about  art,  and  notwithstanding  our  some- 
what feverish  enthusiasm  over  introspec- 
tive social  questions,  the  clear-headed  and 
sound-hearted  folk,  who —  thank  Heaven  ! 
—  are  the  warp  of  our  social  fabric,  do  not 
care  to  fret  and  fume  for  any  such  thing. 
They  go  to  the  novel  for  rest,  amusement, 
illusion,  as  did  the  lovers  of  Thackeray 
and  Dickens,  of  Scott  and  Dumas;  as 
thousands  again  did  in  the  case  of  Trilby, 
as  true  a  child  of  the  elder  romanticists  as 
was  ever  born.  They  have  a  deep-seated 
prejudice  against  fiction  with  a  bad  ending  ; 
so  far  from  wishing  to  have  a  great  book 
stamped  indelibly  on  the  mind  at  a  first 
contact,  they  are  glad  to  possess,  as  a  cul- 
tivated reader  expressed  it  to  the  writer, 
"  the  pleasant  habit  of  forgetting  a  novel," 
assuring  additional  delight  in  the  event  of 
re-perusal.  "  The  world  is  two-thirds  bad, 
I  know,"  says  the  Advocatus  diaboli  to  the 
stickler  for  high  art  and  serious  purpose. 
"  Your  '  realism  '  teaches  me  nothing,  it 
simply  repeats  unsavory  and  belittling 
facts  of  life ;  and  I  would  have  none  of 
it.  Give  me  lies  rather  than  literalities, 
or,  better  yet,  the  half-truths  of  a  scene 


88  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

where  the  light  is  accented  and  the 
shadows  put  in  corners  —  where  they  be- 
long." Now,  this  is  unphilosophic  per- 
haps, but  it  is  natural  and  [pace  Mr. 
Howells  and  those  who  jump  with  him) 
it  is  healthy,  very.  The  trouble  with  the 
Howellsian  view  of  fiction  is  that  it  is  pro- 
fessional, and  so  not  generally  applicable. 
He  is  perfectly  right  —  for  himself. 

But  to  argue  pro  and  con  as  to  this 
attitude  of  the  readers  who  clamor  for 
pleasant  and  incident-thronged  novels,  and 
who  are  the  operative  cause  of  the  Roman- 
tic reaction  we  are  now  witnessing,  is, 
after  all,  aside  from  our  main  line  of 
argument.  We  are  not  justifying  their 
position  or  attacking  it :  we  would  sim- 
ply register  the  fact  of  their  existence, 
and  express  the  conviction  that,  while 
equal  in  intelligence  and  possibly  excel- 
ling in  common-sense  either  of  the  two 
other  classes,  they  are  to-day,  and  will 
be  more  surely  to-morrow,  the  strongest 
in  numbers,  and  thus  for  practical  rea- 
sons are  to  be  respectfully  regarded  by 
the  maker  of  tales.  Mr.  Crawford,  in 
his  chapters  on  the  Art  of  Fiction ,  in- 
sists that  it  is  the  novelist's  primary 


NOVELS    AND    NOVEL-READERS       89 

business  to  purvey  amusement.  The 
believers  in  romances  have  a  sneaking 
sympathy  with  this  position,  though 
many  of  them  would  claim,  and  rightly, 
that  along  with  the  pleasure  may  go  a 
noble  stimulation  of  ideals  affording  that 
instruction,  through  the  divine  indirection 
of  art,  which  is  as  far  removed  from  di- 
dacticism as  from  the  irresponsibility  of 
the  thorough-going  realist.  The  advan- 
tage of  those  whose  cry  is  all  for  illusion 
lies  in  their  being  in  the  line  of  a  whole- 
some tradition,  since  men  and  women 
have  gone  more  steadily  to  fiction  for 
just  that  than  for  aught  else;  and,  again, 
in  their  now  perceptible  and  daily  wax- 
ing in  strength,  a  phenomenon  due  to 
the  noticeable  reaction,  on  the  one  side 
from  the  strained  probing  of  psychologic 
problems,  on  the  other  from  the  art  which 
substitutes  form  for  substance  and  a  qui- 
escent pessimism  for  the  cheerful  bustle 
and  vigor  of  red-blooded  humankind. 
It  is  an  audience  to  depend  on  in  any 
age,  this  of  the  romance  readers,  and  in 
quality  such  that  the  writer  of  fiction  may 
well  trust  himself  to  deserve  its  plaudits ; 
it  is  a  constituency  which  he  should  hes- 


9o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

itate  to  lose,  even  if  there  appear  to  be  a 
temporary  appetite  for  the  morbid  or  the 
naturalistic.  It  is  a  backing  which,  year 
in  and  year  out,  will  sell  his  books  and 
establish  his  fame  and  make  his  copyright 
a  valuable  inheritance  to  his  children. 


PERMANENT  TYPES   IN   FICTION      91 


IV 

PERMANENT   TYPES    IN    MOD- 
ERN FICTION 

¥ 

The  distinction  of  the  modern  novel 
—  the  novel  of  analysis  deriving  from 
Richardson  and  Fielding  —  is  its  emphasis 
of  individual  character.  The  fiction  of  in- 
cident and  plot  is  much  older,  and  is  still 
lusty,  showing,  in  fact,  within  the  past  few 
years,  an  efflorescence  in  adventure  stories, 
the  names  of  Stevenson,  Kipling,  Weyman, 
Doyle,  Crockett,  and  Hope  coming  to 
mind.  But  since  Richardson's  Pamela 
the  development  of  the  novel  of  character 
has  been  rapid  and  rich  in  results,  standing 
for  the  main  tendency ;  even  the  so-called 
novel  of  incident — exemplified  by  some 
notable  works  of  Stevenson  —  has  had  to 
pay  some  attention  to  analysis.  The 
modern  man  is  more  subjective,  and  his 
fiction  reflects  the  fact.  In  a  great  story 
that  precedes  by  only  a  few  years  the 
analytic  stories  of  Richardson  and  Field- 
ing, as  we  have  noted,  the  method  is  very 


92  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

different.  Robinson  Crusoe  is  the  advent- 
ure tale  pure  and  simple;  we  are  interested 
in  the  main  character,  not  so  much  for  him- 
self as  because  of  his  unique  position. 

To  think  of  permanent  types  of  fiction, 
therefore,  —  with  modern  English  litera- 
ture mostly  in  view,  —  is,  broadly  speak- 
ing, to  consider  character ;  those  men 
and  women  in  stories  whom  we  accept  as 
alive,  as  real  creations,  and  as  typifying 
humanity. 

One  would  say,  a  priori,  that  the 
creatures  of  fiction  generally  received  as 
veritable  examples  of  human  nature 
must  possess  elemental  qualities,  and  be 
recognized  as  flesh  and  blood  like  unto 
ourselves.  I  think  that,  as  a  generaliza- 
tion, this  is  true.  Yet  some  famous  crea- 
tions are  against  the  theory ;  Dickens' 
characters,  for  example.  His  folk  confess- 
edly are  often  not  so  much  individuals  as 
abstracts  of  some  dominant  trait  or  humor  ; 
they  are  not  seldom  caricature  rather  than 
portraiture.  Yet  what  novelist's  people 
are  better  known,  have  a  more  permanent 
place  in  affectionate  memory  ? 

This  remark  about  Dickens  puts  us  on 
the  truth.  We  may  be  pretty  sure  of  two 


PERMANENT   TYPES    IN   FICTION 


93 


things  about  these  permanent  types  — 
they  are  in  some  way  attractive,  and  they 
are  keenly  realized  by  their  begetter.  Be- 
ing actual  to  him,  they  are  actual  to  us. 
And  this  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  they  do,  after  all,  set  forth  faithfully 
the  traits  —  the  foibles,  errors,  aspirations, 
sins,  nobilities,  ambitions,  and  sacrifices 
—  of  human  beings.  They  typify  some- 
thing, they  represent  life.  This  is  pre- 
eminently true  of  Dickens,  with  all  his 
exaggeration.  This  typification  may  be 
of  several  kinds.  First,  the  character 
may  stand  for  a  class.  Thackeray's  Pen- 
dennis  is  a  type  of  the  young  English 
gentleman  in  his  salad  days ;  Dickens' 
Micawber,  of  the  impecunious  optimist ; 
Howells'  Silas  Lapham,  of  the  self-made 
American.  Again,  national  as  well  as 
class  characteristics  may  be  displayed. 
This  is  true  of  Lapham,  whom  we  recog- 
nize as  indigenous.  Tolstoy's  Oblonsky, 
in  Anna  Karenina^  is  a  typical  Russian 
of  the  pleasure-loving,  princely  class ; 
the  hero  of  Turgenef's  Fathers  and  Sons 
is  Slav  as  well  as  Nihilist,  while  Newman, 
in  Henry  James'  The  American  (perhaps 
his  best  novel)  has  the  ear-marks  of  a 


94 


LITERARY    LIKINGS 


Westerner  of  the  States,  his  salient  fea- 
tures in  high  relief  against  the  European 
background.  Or,  once  more,  besides  in- 
dicating class  and  nation  in  this  way, 
they  may  also  represent  those  deep  abid- 
ing qualities  of  our  common  human  na- 
ture that  are  elemental  —  that,  allowing 
for  all  differences  of  time  and  country 
and  culture,  are  permanent,  found  alike 
in  Homer,  in  the  Greek  and  the  Eliza- 
bethan dramatists,  in  Cervantes,  or  in  the 
modern  social  story.  More  than  one  of 
the  protagonists  just  mentioned  partake 
of  this  fundamental  aspect.  When  a  fic- 
tion writer  creates  in  this  way,  broadly, 
humanly,  with  an  unerring  insight  into  the 
springs  of  action,  local,  national,  general, 
he  is  great  in  his  calling.  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that,  of  all  the  story-makers  in 
this  century,  Balzac  comes  nearest  to  do- 
ing this  thing.  The  range,  variety,  depth, 
fineness,  and  strength  of  his  performance 
are  amazing.  He  saw  the  human  comedy 
as  a  whole,  and  was  acute  enough  to  de- 
pict it  by  crowding  his  mighty  canvas  with 
French  types,  the  types  he  knew  best, 
which  become,  nevertheless,  representative 
figures,  aside  from  all  racial  limits.  Were 


PERMANENT   TYPES    IN   FICTION      95 

not  my  special  quarry  American  and 
English  fiction,  it  were  well  to  illustrate 
and  expand  as  to  Balzac. 

A  thoughtful  English  critic,  himself  a 
novelist,  has  said,  in  a  recent  article,  that 
while  the  Gallic  and  Slavic  fictionists  deal 
with  the  primary  human  passions,  —  love, 
hate,  revenge,  ambition,  and  the  like,  — 
the  Anglo  Saxons  delineate  secondary  and 
minor  traits.  This  is  a  sweeping  state- 
ment, not,  I  fancy,  to  be  substantiated  by 
a  wide  induction.  But  this  much  surely 
may  be  asserted  —  the  handling  of  motif 
has  been  freer  outside  of  English  fiction, 
and,  on  the  whole,  the  English  books 
dealing  with  elemental  humanity  have 
been  fewer.  Also,  the  books  that  are 
great,  in  which  the  personages  take  the 
firmest  hold  of  us,  are  those  which  por- 
tray these  strongest,  deepest  interests  and 
passions.  This  is  the  trouble  with  a  good 
deal  of  the  late  work  of  James :  he  has 
come  to  consider  delicate  psychologic  nice- 
ties more  than  primal  instincts  and  desires. 
The  carbonic  acid  gas  of  drawing-rooms, 
not  the  oxygen  of  the  open,  is  breathed 
in  his  attenuated  tales  —  with  some  noble 
exceptions.  And  it  may  well  be  that  the 


96  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

wholesome  moral  restrictions  that  until 
recently  have  bound,  and  in  comparison 
with  the  extreme  French  and  Italian  work 
still  do  bind,  our  English-written  fiction 
have  made  its  men  and  women  less  broadly 
human  in  the  sense  that  they  have  not 
been  exhibited  on  all  sides  so  consistently 
as  in  the  best  foreign  work.  Ethically 
viewed,  however,  the  gain  to  fiction  is 
greater  than  the  loss.  This  leads  to  the 
interesting  query,  Has  the  realistic 
school,  which  has  now  for  some  years  had 
its  say,  added  permanent  figures  to  the 
historic  canons  of  fictional  creations?  If 
it  has,  its  method  is  in  some  sense  justified. 
Were  the  characters  in  so-called  realistic 
novels  affectionately  conceived  by  their 
makers,  their  chances  for  permanency 
would  be  good.  There  is  no  lack  of  talent, 
even  of  genius,  in  writers  of  this  school. 
I  should  not  be  inclined  to  deny  the  latter 
highest  quality  to  Thomas  Hardy,  to 
name  one  leader;  yet  he  has  not  been 
prolific  of  these  types,  if,  indeed,  he  has 
created  any.  The  realistic  writers  as  a 
class  have  not  given  us  broad,  living  crea- 
tions. The  failure  of  realism  to  portray 
permanent  types  cannot  be  set  aside  by  the 


PERMANENT   TYPES    IN   FICTION      97 

easy  explanation  that  they  deal  for  the 
most  part  with  the  seamy  aspects  of  life. 
There  are  lovable  rascals  in  fiction.  No, 
the  fault  lies  with  the  point  of  view,  the 
method.  The  realist  tries  to  see  his 
characters  objectively  ;  he  detaches  him- 
self from  them ;  in  a  word,  dissects  them 
coldly.  He  sees  them  lop-sided,  too 
much  in  the  flesh.  The  realist  does  not 
love  his  creations.  Love  will  cover  a  mul- 
titude of  sins  in  the  story-writer.  When 
the  romanticist  of  fiction,  with  a  big  heart 
and  a  catholic  comprehension  of  human 
kind,  shows  you  a  bad  man  or  woman  in 
a  sympathetic  way,  with  the  implication 
that  there  is  some  good  along  with  the 
evil,  and  always  the  chance  of  better 
things,  you  are  broadened  and  made  seri- 
ous-minded, but  not  depressed  or  devital- 
ized. Hawthorne's  Hester  is  a  sinner, 
not  a  decadent.  Stevenson's  picturesque 
rascals  are  of  this  wholesome  sort.  Gil- 
bert Parker's  Pierre,  in  those  wonderful 
tales  of  the  far  North,  is  of  the  same 
family.  He  is  not  a  saint,  Master  Pierre, 
but  a  fellow  one  likes  withal,  and  is  helped, 
not  harmed,  by  knowing.  With  very  few 
exceptions,  the  strongest  characters  of 


98  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

realists  are  not  sympathetic ;  the  author 
has  not  yearned  over  them  fondly,  and 
consequently  the  reader  is  not  magnetized. 

This  reason  why  the  realist  fails  in  giv- 
ing us"  permanent  types  —  because,  while 
they  may  be  realized  as  actual,  they  are 
not  truly  loved  —  leads  back  to  a  re- 
newed insistence  on  those  two  criteria : 
characters,  to  live  and  appeal  broadly, 
must  not  only  be  vividly  conceived  by 
their  creator,  but  must  be  winsome,  must 
attract  rather  than  repel.  Dickens,  on 
finishing  a  story,  was  saddened  that  he 
had  to  bid  his  imagined  folk  good-by. 
In  one  preface  he  tells  how  he  hated  to 
leave  his  dramatis  persons,  being  moved 
even  to  tears.  Goethe  used  to  set  his 
literary  characters  in  a  chair  opposite  him, 
and  talk  to  them  literally.  These  inci- 
dents illustrate  what  I  mean  by  vivid, 
loving  conception  in  literature. 

It  is  a  fact  which  those  who  sneer  at 
the  ethical  in  literary  art  must  explain, 
that  the  permanent  fictional  types  are 
prevailingly  those  which  depict  the  nobler 
and  sweeter  and  more  normal  aspects  of 
humanity.  Moreover,  I  believe  there  is 
a  deep  psychologic  reason  for  this,  and 


PERMANENT   TYPES   IN   FICTION      99 

will  speak  of  it  anon.  By  no  means  will 
it  do  to  claim  that  invariably  these  types 
are  thus  beautiful.  Becky  Sharp  is  as 
permanent  as  Colonel  Newcome.  If 
the  drawing  be  sympathetic  and  masterly, 
and  the  traits  recognizable,  it  is  enough. 
But  that  the  world  of  readers  prefers 
those  creations  which  exemplify  the  bet- 
ter, higher,  purer,  and  sweeter  side  of 
humanity  seems  to  me  as  indubitable  as 
it  is  certain  that  the  making  of  such  calls 
out  the  best  powers  of  the  writer.  This 
is  an  instinct  of  self-preservation  in  man- 
kind :  to  wish  the  best  they  can  show  to 
live.  Most  of  us  would  rather  see  noble 
folk  than  ignoble  around  us  in  real  life : 
it  is  the  same  in  fiction. 

By  a  sort  of  reflex  action,  the  very  ex- 
istence of  such  heroes  and  heroines  im- 
plies potential  heroics  in  ourselves,  is  a 
compliment  and  tonic  to  our  human 
nature.  And  so  it  is  that  the  permanent 
types  of  fiction  are  made  up  largely  of 
those  who  in  some  way  deserve  the  heroic 
designation.  They  are  heroes  and  hero- 
ines, not  in  the  conventional  modern  sense 
of  the  realist,  whose  nominal  hero  is  an 
epitome  of  the  vices  or  a  walking  congeries 


ioo  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

of  commonplaces,  but  in  the  good  roman- 
tic sense,  with  the  primitive  Greek  flavor 
to  it  of  large,  fine,  sweet  action.  Here 
belong  the  main  men  and  women  of  Scott, 
Eliot,  Reade,  Dickens  at  his  most  inspired. 
George  Eliot  is  a  stern  realist,  granted. 
One  of  her  central  figures  —  Tito  in 
Romola  —  is  a  study  of  moral  weakness 
rather  than  of  strength.  But  he  is  a  foil 
to  Romola  herself,  and  of  Eliot's  work 
as  a  whole  it  may  truthfully  be  said  that 
she  draws  real  heroes  and  heroines  —  all 
the  realer  in  that  they  sin  and  suffer.  On 
a  little  reflection,  it  will  appear  that  many 
a  character  of  fiction  you  would  not  think 
at  first  of  putting  in  the  heroic  category 
is  preserved  to  immortality  by  some  touch 
of  nobility,  a  heroic  strain,  warped,  hidden, 
blurred,  maybe,  but  there  nevertheless. 
Humanity  will  not  readily  give  up  the 
heroic,  and  is  lynx-eyed  to  detect  its  gleam, 
even  of  the  jewel  in  the  dung-hill. 

But  in  the  hero-worship  by  novel- 
readers,  the  false-heroic  is  excluded ;  it 
is  men,  not  demi-gods,  that  are  admired. 
That  which  violates  truth  to  real  human- 
ity is  to-day  foredoomed  to  fail.  Such 
types  cannot  be  realized  by  their  maker, 


PERMANENT   TYPES   IN   FICTION    101 

and  are  unnatural  to  us.  As  notable  a 
failure  in  this  class  as  English  fiction  can 
show  is  Sir  Charles  Grandison  in  Richard- 
son's novel  of  that  name.  Grandison,  in- 
tended for  a  hero,  is  an  insufferable  prig, 
not  to  be  credited  for  a  moment,  and  al- 
ways a  bore.  The  tendency  of  the  mod- 
ern novel  has  been  to  draw  credible  heroes 
and  heroines,  or,  at  least,  flawed  characters 
with  noble  elements  in  them.  Many  of 
George  Meredith's  men  and  women  fur- 
nish good  illustration.  Roy  Richmond 
in  Harry  Richmond,  Richard  Feverel  in 
the  book  of  that  name,  Diana  in  Diana 
of  the  Crossways,  —  none  of  them  saints, 
the  first  a  scapegrace,  the  second  almost 
morally  wrecked,  the  woman  in  a  strange 
scene  selling  her  lover  for  money,  yet 
all  leaving  the  impression  of  natures  capa- 
ble of  high  love,  courage,  or  self-sacrifice. 
Kipling,  in  a  virile,  careless  way,  has  shown 
us  the  possibility  of  heroics  in  the  rough 
British  private.  Barrie  and  Maclaren 
paint  for  an  admiring  host  of  readers  the 
virtues  of  Scotch  rustics,  not  blinking  the 
faults  and  vices  ;  and  their  types  are  likely 
to  last,  for  the  very  reason  that  they  are 
seen  in  the  whole,  they  are  recognized  as 


loz  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

true,  and  as  well  beloved  of  their  makers. 
An  American  writer  like  Miss  Jewett, 
never  abusing  a  fine  realism,  draws  rural 
New  Englanders  from  an  equal  reservoir 
of  love  and  knowledge ;  and  exquisite  lit- 
erature, with  types  not  to  be  forgotten,  is 
the  outcome. 

Thus,  in  many  sections  of  our  wonder- 
ful land,  devoted  and  skilful  writers,  who 
are  also  sympathetic  students  of  Man,  are 

Eortraying  types  in  short  story  or  full- 
;ngth  novel  in  such  wise  that  —  although 
it  is  too  early  even  for  prophecy  —  some 
permanent  figures  must,  it  would  seem, 
remain.  If  they  do  not,  it  will  be  because 
the  study  was  too  minute  and  fussy. 
For  when  those  two  things,  affection  and 
genuine  acquaintance  with  the  subject- 
matter,  are  conjoined  with  literary  expres- 
sion, permanent  types  are  pretty  sure  to 
emerge  —  types  the  world  will  accept  as 
true  to  our  western  civilization.  It  were 
easy  to  swell  this  paper  beyond  its  limits 
with  examples  of  the  good  work  already 
done.  The  artist  must  know,  must  have 
imagination  and  moral  principle,  seeing 
the  finer  issues  of  our  underlying  human- 
ity in  whatever  local  conditions,  however 


PERMANENT   TYPES   IN    FICTION    103 

humble  his  persons  or  scenes.  Then  the 
fiction  will  have  the  abiding  quality. 
This  quality  one  finds  in  the  best  work 
of  Parker  with  his  Canadians,  Garland 
with  his  Westerners,  Howells  with  his 
urban  folk,  Page  with  his  darkies,  Cable 
with  his  Creoles,  Helen  Hunt  with  her 
Indians,  —  to  run  over  a  few  representa- 
tive names. 

To  return  to  the  keynote.  Permanent 
types  in  fiction  portray  with  truth  and 
power  some  phase  of  essential,  broad 
human  nature,  as  well  as  of  human  nature 
with  the  dress  and  accent  and  manner  of  a 
given  time  and  place.  And  these  types 
must  spring  creatively  from  one  who  loves 
them  much,  and  sees  them  as  if  bodied 
forth  in  the  flesh ;  and  they  will  be  the 
surer  of  permanency  the  more  they  imply 
the  God-in-man.  This  last  will  be  fool- 
ishness to  those  who  would  dissever  art 
from  ethics.  But  I  believe  the  appeal  to 
literary  history  proves  it  beyond  perad- 
venture. 


A  Study  in  the  Literary  Time-spirit 


BJORNSON,     DAUDET,     JAMES: 

A    STUDY  IN  THE    LITERARY  TIME-SPIRIT. 

¥ 

i 

TT  is  conventional  criticism  to  say  that 
-*•  great  writers  make  the  Time-spirit.  Now 
and  then,  perhaps,  in  the  course  of  the 
centuries,  it  is  true  that  dominant  figures 
stand  out  ahead  of  their  day  and  seem  to 
shape  its  thought.  Yet  even  some  of  the 
world  masters  —  Shakespeare,  Dante,  Cer- 
vantes—  are  in  many  ways  creatures  of 
their  epoch,  moulded  by  its  ideals,  ex- 
pressing the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
standards  of  their  land  and  period. 

General  propositions  are  dangerous ; 
but  I  believe  it  will  be  found  of  the  ma- 
jority of  leading  literary  figures  of  his- 
tory that,  rather  than  lead  their  day,  they 
have  expressed  it,  and,  moreover,  have 
changed  with  its  change.  Possibly  it 
would  be  more  philosophic  to  say  that 
the  age  changes  with  them  and  because  of 


io8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

them ;  but  analysis  reveals  the  fact  that, 
as  a  rule,  expansion  of  thought  and  broad- 
ening of  knowledge  come  from  a  field  lying 
outside  of  literature;  namely,  from  science. 
It  is  the  business  of  literature  to  reflect 
this  growth.  The  great  creative  writers 
take  over  this  knowledge  into  the  imagi- 
native domain,  and  make  use  of  it  in  art. 
In  this  sense  they  are  the  children  of  the 
Time-spirit.  This  thesis  is  illustrated  by 
the  literary  work  of  three  men,  Bjornson, 
Daudet,  and  James,  all  of  whom  occupy 
commanding  positions  in  the  letters  of 
their  respective  lands.  It  is  well  to  select 
writers  of  ripe  maturity,  since  otherwise 
their  careers  would  not  extend  through 
years  sufficient  to  bring  them  under  the 
altered  ideals  I  have  in  mind. 

The  present  literary  standard  and  temper 
are  expressed  by  the  convenient,  though 
hackneyed,  word  realism.  Whatever  its 
origin,  however  justifiable  as  a  revolt  from 
narrow  and  sentimental  untruth  in  literary 
art,  realism  has  brought  in  its  train  the 
cult  of  the  grim,  the  low,  the  impure,  and 
the  horrible.  It  has  also  resulted  in  much 
that  is  admirable,  and  it  registers  an  ad- 
vance in  technique.  But  the  sins  of  real- 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,    JAMES       109 

ism  are  heavy.  This  literary  movement 
is  far  more  than  aesthetic.  Within  its 
wide  boundaries  are  summed  up  and  ex- 
pressed the  unrest,  the  doubt,  and  the 
agony  of  a  period  which,  within  a  half 
century,  has  been  compelled  by  the  stern 
teaching  of  science  to  reconstruct  its  atti- 
tude towards  the  eternal,  and  to  behold  a 
new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  Literature 
has  had  to  assimilate  these  changes,  and 
literary  workers  have  expressed  it  accord- 
ing to  individual  bias  and  temperament. 
The  shallow  it  has  not  so  much  affected, 
save  as  furnishing  a  pretext  for  the  pessi- 
mistic pose.  The  weak  it  has  crushed  or 
driven  into  rebellion,  license,  and  despair. 
The  strongest  and  deepest  have  been 
changed  and  saddened  by  it.  If  our  old- 
est living  writers  of  highest  literary  repute 
in  the  civilized  lands  were  studied  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  observing  how  they  have 
been  spiritual  barometers  registering  the 
ethic  weather,  the  great  gulf  which  lies 
between  1850  and  1890  would  be  realized. 
A  brief  scrutiny  of  Bjornson,  Daudet,  and 
James  will  make  the  point  clear. 


LITERARY    LIKINGS 


II 

Bjornson  shares  with  Ibsen  the  literary 
supremacy  of  Norway.  The  former  is 
its  hero  and  prophet  as  the  latter  is  its 
judge.  Through  a  long,  strenuous,  ath- 
letic life  of  struggle  with  forces  practical 
and  spiritual,  Bjornson  has  shown  an 
intellectual  development  and  a  shift  of 
ethical  and  artistic  creed  which  are  remark- 
able. He  has  well-nigh  boxed  the  mental 
compass  of  opinion.  This  change  is  as 
obvious  in  his  literary  work  as  in  his 
relations  to  the  politics  of  his  native  land. 
He  began  his  literary  career  by  writing 
simple,  exquisite  idyls  of  country  life, 
with  little  of  plot  or  drama,  but  having 
great  charm  of  truthful,  sympathetic  char- 
acterization and  picturesque  description. 
Read  Synnove  Solbakken  for  a  classical 
example  of  this  genre.  The  book  is  a 
homely,  beautiful  prose  poem  in  which 
the  Norwegian  peasant  is  revealed  in  his 
habit  as  he  lives,  by  one  who  knows  and 
loves  him.  Nor  do  Arne  and  The  Fisher 
Maiden,  which  followed,  representing  his 
first  decade  of  authorship,  lie  outside  of 
this  idyllic  group.  Nor  again  do  his 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES       in 

dramatic  works  up  to  1870  indicate  the 
change  that  was  coming.  Tragedies  he 
wrote,  of  course,  as  in  the  great  .trilogy  of 
Sigurd  S/embe,  or  in  Maria  Stuart.  But 
we  have  strong,  healthy  romanticism  here, 
as  we  have  in  Ibsen's  splendid  earlier 
history-play,  The  Pretenders,  between 
which  and  the  dreary  sadness  of  his  later 
social  dramas  there  is  a  world  of  differ- 
ence. 

It  is  only  after  1870  that  the  present 
Bjornson  begins  to  emerge,  that  the 
insistent  fatalistic  note  is  heard,  bespeak- 
ing the  soul  of  one  for  whom  the  times 
are  out  of  joint.  In  both  plays  and 
stories  the  gloom  deepens  rapidly,  the 
stress  grows  grimmer  and  grimmer.  Dur- 
ing the  years  from  1872  to  1874  Bjorn- 
son, hitherto  satisfied  with  Norway's 
people  and  her  political  status,  expressing 
in  literary  forms  this  national  eupepsia, — 
satisfied,  too,  with  the  world  and  its 
maker, — was  undergoing  more  than  a  sea 
change.  His  writings  began  to  voice  this 
change  of  heart.  He  became  the  advo- 
cate of  extreme  republicanism  in  politics 
and  free  thought  in  religion.  From  this 
inspiration  have  come,  during  the  last 


Hz  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

twenty  years,  half  a  dozen  or  more  novels 
and  as  many  plays.  A  practical  result 
has  been  .that  Bjornson  is  mistrusted  or 
hated  of  conservatives,  adored  by  the 
young  blood.  The  common  folk,  though 
looking  askance  at  his  heterodoxy,  have 
not  displaced  him  from  his  niche,  won  by 
his  earlier  portrayal  of  them,  and  by  his 
superb  patriotism.  In  a  word,  this  leader, 
under  the  stimulus  of  late  nineteenth-cen- 
tury ideas,  has  turned  iconoclast ;  the  in- 
tellectual goad  of  our  time  has  made  him 
a  fighter ;  "  only  combat,"  says  a  friend, 
"  arouses  his  Titantic  energy  and  calls  all 
his  splendid  faculties  into  play." 

The  subjects  of  his  realistic  and  search- 
ing analytical  dramas  and  novels  are  in 
evidence.  Looking  forth  upon  modern 
society,  upon  a  world  transfigured  for 
him  by  Darwin  and  Spencer,  he  shows 
this  trend  in  his  literary  product.  Turn 
to  the  plays  for  a  moment.  Bankruptcy 
in  1874  was  a  study  of  the  dubious  morals 
in  the  money  world,  suggesting  the  paral- 
lel of  Zola's  L 'Argent.  'The  Editor,  of 
the  next  year,  is  a  savage  satire  on  latter- 
day  journalism,  with  its  lies,  scandal,  sub- 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES       113 

terfuges.  The  King  (1877)  exhibits  roy- 
alty as  a  curse  because  of  the  inevitable 
injury  to  the  ruler's  character,  and  because 
founded  on  a  sham  divinity,  —  this  thesis 
significant  in  a  land  well-nigh  in  the 
throes  of  republican  birth.  Leonardo, 
(1877)  and  The  Glove  (1883)  deal  boldly 
with  aspects  of  the  woman  question,  the 
former  imagining  the  case  of  a  spotted 
creature  and  depicting  society's  attitude 
towards  her,  while  the  latter  shows  a  man 
in  the  same  dilemma,  society  being  as  soft 
as  before  it  was  hard.  The  girl  Leonarda 
is  a  manifestation  of  the  New  Woman, 
the  sort  of  unconventional  creature  drawn 
by  Ibsen,  Sudermann,  and  the  English- 
men, Jones  and  Pinero ;  and  Svava  in 
'The  Glove  is  another  girl  to  be  differenti- 
ated distinctly  from  the  type  obtaining  of 
old.  She  is  as  frank  as  a  boy  with  her 
lover,  and  insists  that  he  be  judged  by  as 
severe  a  standard  as  she  herself.  Beyond 
his  Strength,  the  same  year,  shows  Bjorn- 
son  struggling  with  the  great  modern 
question  of  monopoly.  Labor  is  ranged 
against  capital,  workmen  strike,  ask  for 
redress  by  arbitration,  and  finally  lay  a 
train  by  which  capitalists  in  session  are 


n4  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

blown  up  by  dynamiters.  Yet  the  master 
is  not  conquered,  the  trouble  remains 
unsolved.  The  play  states  dramatically 
the  existing  conditions,  and  implies  some 
right  on  both  sides.  A  sombre,  strenu- 
ous play  it  is,  displaying  distraught  nerves 
and  hysterical  ambitions  at  war  with  peace 
and  happiness.  These  six  plays  suffice  to 
give  an  idea  of  the  motifs  used  by  Bjbrn- 
son  since  his  emancipation. 

A  number  of  novels  illustrate  the  same 
tendency.  It  will  be  enough  to  look  at 
two  leading  fictions :  Flags  in  City  and 
Harbor  (1884)  and  In  God's  Ways  (1889). 
The  former,  which  has  appeared  in  English 
translation  as  the  Heritage  of  the  Kurts, 
grapples  with  the  tremendous  question  of 
heredity  —  a  social  factor  that  with  mod- 
ern literature  is  coming  to  play  a  lead- 
ing role,  like  Fate  in  the  Greek  dramatists. 
Zola's  whole  scheme  in  his  Rougon-Mac- 
quart  series  is  based  thereupon.  So  with 
this  great  work  of  Bjornson's.  Five  gen- 
erations of  Kurts  are  analyzed ;  there  is 
bad  blood  in  them,  a  fierce,  lustful  heri- 
tage from  savage  forbears.  The  hero's 
father  has  married  a  noble  specimen  of 
untainted  peasant  womanhood,  and  his 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES       115 

racial  instinct  breaks  out  in  a  quarrel  with 
his  wife,  whom  he  physically  maltreats. 
But  it  is  Greek  meet  Greek,  for  she  is 
no  white,  weak,  high-bred  dame  to  be 
cowed  by  his  insolence,  but  gives  blow 
for  blow,  and  before  they  are  through  the 
room  is  full  of  wrecked  furniture  as  well 
as  hopes.  The  husband,  moreover,  is 
second-best,  and  dies  of  apoplexy.  This 
scene,  coarse  in  fact,  has  such  issues  at 
stake  that  its  significance  is  awful,  remov- 
ing it  to  another  sphere  from  such  another 
awful  scene  as  that  in  'Tom  Jones,  where 
Squire  Western  strikes  his  daughter  to 
the  floor.  Now  mark  the  sequel.  The 
widow  looks  forward  to  maternity,  and 
keenly  aware  of  the  probability  that  the 
child  will  have  the  father's  disposition  — 
be  weighted  by  the  terrible  Kurt  heritage 
—  she  thinks  of  killing  herself.  The 
strength  and  horror  of  this  psychological 
situation  are  manifest.  Finally  she  de- 
cides that  if  the  child  is  dark,  like  the 
Kurts,  she  and  it  shall  die  ;  if  blonde,  like 
her  people,  it  shall  live  and  be  reared  in 
all  right  ways  by  its  mother,  so  to  purify 
the  paternal  taint.  The  boy  child  proves, 
very  disobligingly,  neither  fish  nor  flesh : 


u6  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

he  is  red-haired  and  gray-eyed,  both  father 
and  mother  appearing  in  him.  So  the 
mother  dubiously  decides  in  his  favor, 
brings  him  up  on  a  most  scientific  scheme 
of  education  (the  treatment  here  reminds 
of  Meredith's  Richard  Fever  el},  and  lo  !  the 
result  is  that  he  turns  out  a  prig  —  too 
good,  as  his  father  was  too  bad.  He  is  a 
disagreeable  ascetic,  whom  we  grudgingly 
respect.  A  gleam  of  light  is  thrown  in  at 
the  end,  when  he  marries  a  wholesome  girl 
of  sounder  stock  than  his  own.  Behold 
how  impossible  to  fiction  before  the  sec- 
ond half  of  the  century  such  a  thing  is ! 
Though  of  absorbing  interest,  the  story 
hardly  furnishes  pleasant  reading.  The 
other  novel,  In  God's  PP'ays,  is  still  more 
daring  and  drastic.  The  situation  handled  is 
somewhat  like  that  in  The  Heavenly  Twins. 
A  wife,  discovering  she  is  linked  to  a  liber- 
tine, leaves  him  and  eventually  unites  her- 
self to  a  young  doctor  who  has  revealed  to 
her  her  wrong.  Society,  which  has  ap- 
plauded the  act  which  leads  her  into  the 
shame  of  living  with  her  husband,  is 
shocked  when  she  marries  the  other ;  and 
by  a  series  of  delicate  deadly  slights  and 
innuendoes  hounds  her  down  to  the  grave. 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES       117 

There  is  a  parson  and  his  wife  who,  proper 
folks  socially  as  well  as  ethically,  condemn 
the  woman,  only  waking  up  to  her  nobility 
when  she  is  dead.  The  story,  as  centring 
around  the  New  Woman  again,  is  ad- 
vanced, and  is  pessimistically  sad  in  tone, 
though  there  are  alleviations  in  other  char- 
acters. That  it  is  very  Ibsenish  may  be 
gathered  even  from  this  meagre  sketch. 
Some  of  the  chapters  are  repulsively  path- 
ological —  Zola  has  to  look  to  his  laurels 
at  times.  It  may  be  added  that  in  the 
later  collection  of  short  stories  (1894)  en- 
titled New  Tales,  the  uncompromising, 
harsh  realism  is  if  anything  more  marked, 
and  the  lime-light  of  the  Romanticist  is 
never  turned  on.  Contrasting  all  this 
latest  work  with  the  Bjornson  of  the  early 
idyl,  poem,  and  romantic  history-play, 
one  realizes  what  a  change  is  here,  what  a 
moulding  under  the  influence  of  the 
Time-spirit. 

Ill 

Turn  now  to  a  very  different  maker  of 
literature,  who  yet  has  been  sensitive  to 
the  same  subtle  influences.  Alphonse 
Daudet,  a  supreme  artist,  naturally  a 


n8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

poet  and  romanticist,  drifted  far  from  his 
sometime  tender  and  joyous  sketches  and 
stories  into  the  joyless  waters  of  modern 
realism.  He  began  as  a  dreamer,  a  lover 
of  Nature,  a  sun-worshipping  Provencal. 
Think  of  his  Letters  from  my  Mi//,  the 
work  of  a  young  man  of  twenty-six,  a 
delightsome  thing  compounded  of  delicate 
humor  and  poetry  and  stingless  satire. 
And  in  the  first  of  the  Tartarin  series, 
coming  a  few  years  after,  what  a  chef 
<f  ceu'ure  of  satiric  fun  surcharged  with  the 
spirit  of  his  natal  south  !  It  was  not  until 
1874,  when  Daudet  was  thirty-four,  that 
he  came  to  see  Life  after  the  manner  of 
the  modern  psychological  school.  Real- 
ism then  got  him  in  its  grip.  With  Fro- 
ment  Jeune  et  Risler  Aine  comes  a  right- 
about-face indeed.  Here  is  a  Parisian 
novel  minute  in  its  descriptions  of  modern 
types,  searching  in  analysis,  unpleasant 
often  in  scene  or  character,  and  pursuing 
relentlessly  to  the  bitter  end  the  inevitable 
results  of  bad  acts.  The  plot  is  risky, 
realistic  in  the  extreme.  A  fine  old  fellow 
betrayed  by  his  business  partner  and  by 
the  wife  of  his  bosom  is  not  an  agreeable 
spectacle.  Here  again  is  the  light  woman 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,.  JAMES       119 

and  the  drame  a  trois  which  have  become 
the  stock  properties  of  current  French 
fiction ;  the  three-cornered  drama  played 
by  husband,  wife,  and  lover. 

The  next  novel,  Jack,  is  as  poignantly 
sad  a  thing  as  was  ever  writ.  Like  Suder- 
mann's  Dame  Care,  it  is  the  autobiography 
of  a  shy,  sensitive  lad,  but  the  Gallic 
touch  makes  it  very  different.  Here  we 
get  the  light  woman  who  is  a  mother  — 
a  far  more  repulsive  phenomenon  than 
Sidonie  in  the  earlier  book.  The  son, 
driven  from  home,  loses  faith  in  all  good, 
and  incontinently  goes  to  the  bad.  With 
all  its  pathos  and  power,  Jack  is  a  work 
of  heart-rending  gloom  and  irony.  At 
the  core  of  its  intense  moral  earnestness 
lies  the  dry-rot  of  despair.  The  evil  is 
presented  for  the  sake  of  a  comment  upon 
Life's  mysteries  —  the  pity  of  its  mistakes, 
the  awfulness  of  its  misdoings.  The 
Nabob,  two  years  later,  is  by  no  means  so 
unpleasant,  yet  it  could  hardly  be  called 
cheerful  reading,  ending  as  it  does  in  the 
social  and  financial  downfall  of  its  hero, 
the  wonderfully  drawn  Proven9al  money- 
king.  But  the  book  contains  much  of 
stern  realism  in  the  analysis  of  character ; 


izo  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

and  in  that  other  study  of  the  Provence 
type,  Numa  Roumestan,  whose  protagonist 
is  a  brilliantly  mendacious  creature  full  of 
tergiversation  and  tricky  finesse,  certainly 
the  after-taste  is  not  agreeable,  though 
few  modern  fictions  can  equal  it  for  truth 
and  force.  The  very  dramatic  and  fasci- 
nating story  Kings  in  Exile,  with  its  picture 
of  royalty  stripped  of  its  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstance, its  poetic  handling  of  the 
romantic  devotion  which  is  inspired  by 
the  king  idea,  has  less  of  the  sombre 
quality  we  are  drawing  attention  to  in 
Daudet's  later  works.  But  £3^0(1884) 
shows  the  author's  most  extreme  venture 
into  the  Zolaesque,  and  is  hardly  to  be 
discussed.  What  a  long  road  its  author 
has  travelled  since  the  days  of  the  ex- 
quisite short  stories  and  the  dreamy  idyls 
of  his  youth  !  And  what  a  savage,  sweep- 
ing satire  of  social  hypocrisy  is  The  Im- 
mortal, which  materially  damaged  Daudet's 
chance  of  admission  to  the  French  Acad- 
emy !  Whether  or  not  personal  rancor 
at  his  non-election  to  that  august  body 
underlay  the  animus  of  the  book,  its  tone 
is  decidedly  cynical,  and  the  final  case  of 
the  Academician,  laughed  at  by  his  col- 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES       121 

leagues,  despised  at  home  by  his  wife 
and  son,  and  finding  refuge  in  suicide, 
is  sorry  enough.  Daudet' s  last  novel, 
The  Support  of  the  Family r,  which  has  ap- 
peared in  an  English  rendering  since  the 
death  of  the  author,  is  a  full-length, 
minute  portraiture  of  a  weak,  corrupt 
nature ;  the  romantic  touch  at  the  end  is 
out  of  key  with  the  drift  of  the  book. 
But  enough  stories  have  been  touched 
upon  to  show  that  in  his  major  work,  his 
full-length  fiction,  Daudet  has  moved 
steadily  away  from  pleasing  romance  and 
poetry,  and  towards  sombre  portraiture 
and  the  destructive  criticism  of  life.  I  do 
not  forget  charming  idyllic  studies  like 
Le  Petit  Chose  in  1876,  or  La  Belle  Niver- 
naise  a  decade  later,  little  classics  both ; 
this  writer  has  never  lost  utterly  his  early 
mood  and  manner.  But  the  most  serious 
and  thorough-going  work  has  been  in  the 
other  direction.  Allowing  for  the  per- 
sonal equation,  it  seems  a  fair  statement 
to  say  that  the  Time-spirit  has  been  as 
efficacious  in  shaping  the  literature  and  in 
changing  the  philosophy  of  Daudet  as  it 
has  been  in  the  person  of  his  Norwegian 
broth er-in-letters,  Bjornson. 


122  LITERARY    LIKINGS 


IV 

It  remains  to  speak  of  the  third  author 
in  the  trilogy,  a  man  and  writer  so  en- 
tirely diverse  from  the  other  two  that  it 
seems  whimsical  to  bracket  them  together. 
Yet  Henry  James  also  illustrates  the 
workings  of  this  same  law.  The  Time- 
spirit  has  also  had  its  way  with  him.  To 
say  that  Bjornson,  Daudet,  and  James  are 
realists,  each  after  his  own  manner,  is  one 
way  of  illustrating  how  wide  is  the  con- 
tent, how  loose  the  significance,  of  the 
word  realism.  James  is  no  more  like 
either  of  the  others  than  chalk  is  like 
cheese.  An  Anglo-Saxon,  of  excessive 
refinement,  the  fleshly,  as  such,  has  no 
lure  for  him  at  all.  But  intellectually, 
and  in  the  conductment  of  his  tales,  he 
has  shown  himself  progressively  one 
whose  creed  is  summed  up  by  the  weari- 
some catch-phrase,  "  Art  for  Art's 
Sake."  He  applies  agnostic  analysis  to 
the  psychological  states  of  human  beings 
—  psychology,  character  study,  and  de- 
velopment constituting  his  supreme  in- 
terest. This  taste,  together  with  an 
increasing  culture  of  aestheticism  which 


BjORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES       123 

has  run  into  a  sort  of  man-milliner  fussi- 
ness,  has  led  him  in  his  latest  phase  to 
substitute  "  nice  shades  and  fine  feelings  " 
—  in  George  Meredith's  phrase  —  for  the 
elemental  interests  and  passions  of  men 
and  women.  Read  The  Spoils  of  Poynton, 
a  recent  book,  in  proof.  A  subtle  indi- 
rection of  style  and  tenuity  of  thought 
have  contributed  to  an  effect  which  has 
lost  him  the  sympathy  of  many  healthy- 
minded  and  intelligent  folk.  Yet  with  all 
subtractions,  with  a  class  narrowness  cling- 
ing to  all  he  does,  he  remains  uniquely  an 
artist  in  his  peculiar  field.  But  leave  the 
James  of  to-day,  for  once,  and  go  back 
twenty  odd  years  to  Watch  and  Ward^ 
The  Passionate  Pilgrim^  and  Roderick  Hud- 
son. The  one  word  by  which  to  charac- 
terize this  early  work  is  Romanticism. 
Watch  and  Ward,  his  first  fiction  of  mo- 
ment, has  analysis,  the  psychologic  in- 
terest. But  its  pleasant  ending  is  a  con- 
cession to  the  romantic.  A  young  man 
who  adopts  a  little  girl  and  rears  her  with 
the  hope  of  making  her  his  wife  would 
not  succeed  always  in  life ;  and  certainly 
would  not  succeed  in  James'  later  fiction. 
The  book  is  full  of  poetic  beauty  and  ideal 


X24  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

fitness.  It  shows  us  a  James  able  to  se- 
lect from  the  raw  material  of  life  the 
happier  'eventualities  of  art.  The  six 
tales  included  in  The  Passionate  Pil- 
grim are  the  work  of  the  romanticist. 
Several  of  them  are  steeped  in  a  gentle 
melancholy,  but  all  of  them  are  poetic, 
vital  with  human  feeling  that  explains 
their  atmosphere  and  justifies  their  de- 
nouement. 

These  half  dozen  stories  put  one  in 
thrall  to  a  James  one  has  to  be  reintro- 
duced  to  if  one  has  known  him  only  in 
his  recent  work.  Then  consider  that 
superb  romance,  Roderick  Hudson,  a  novel 
which,  for  largeness,  moving  power,  and 
sense  of  impassioned  life,  as  well  as  for 
subject  and  atmosphere,  it  does  not  seem 
whimsical  to  associate  with  Hawthorne's 
Marble  Faun.  The  conclusion  is  tragic, 
granted ;  but  the  tragedy  is  of  that  kind 
that  purges  and  purifies  —  it  is  radically 
different  from  the  ironic  sadness  of  James' 
later  stories.  Its  author,  practically  iden- 
tical with  Roland,  the  patron  of  Hud- 
son, the  gifted  young  painter,  is  not 
the  detached  observer  of  his  characters 
he  afterwards  becomes.  And  it  is  largely 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES        125 

the  Time-spirit  that  has  made  him  finally 
an  on-looker  at  Life's  feast,  watching  with 
satiric  resignation  the  march  of  Fate.  In 
Roderick  Hudson,  in  the  earlier  books  in 
general,  the  writer  is,  as  it  were,  implicated 
in  the  action,  and  grieves  with  the  reader 
if  the  end  be  untoward.  Little  by  little 
in  James'  development  comes  the  sense 
of  the  hopelessness  of  the  personal 
struggle.  The  romantic  view  of  life, 
interwoven  of  dark  and  light,  is  ex- 
changed for  a  quiescent  pessimism  that, 
because  it  is  well-bred  and  not  noisy, 
is  none  the  less  sardonic. 

In  'The  American,  almost  contemporane- 
ous with  the  great  story  just  named,  and 
with  it  showing  James  in  his  heydey  of 
power,  the  transition  to  the  maturer  mood 
is  under  way,  but  the  balance  between 
romanticism  and  realism  is  not  yet  de- 
stroyed and  the  result  is  a  very  rich,  vital 
piece  of  fiction.  Daisy  Miller,  a  year  or 
two  later,  being  satiric  in  the  lighter  vein, 
is  not  so  instructive  for  our  purposes, 
although  the  romantic  connotation  is  suffi- 
ciently absent.  Nor  does  'The  Portrait  of 
a  Lady,  in  1881,  represent  the  altered 
James  in  high  relief.  These  two  books 


126  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

are  the  successful  work  of  a  great  artist 
slowly  moulded  by  his  philosophy  (only  in 
part  by  his  temperament)  into  an  unfriend- 
liness with  life.  And  his  philosophy 
means,  as  it  does  with  any  man,  his  per- 
sonal assimilation  of  the  philosophy  of 
his  time.  Recall  the  Bostonians,  Princess 
Cassamassimia,  The  Tragic  Muse,  The  Other 
House  y  and  The  Spoils  of  Poynton,  with  the 
many  volumes  of  short  tales  of  which 
the  recent  Terminations  is  a  fair  example, 
—  fiction  standing  for  the  past  dozen 
years  of  labor,  —  and  see  if  what  may 
be  called  inconclusiveness  of  plot  or  story 
be  not  a  striking  element.  And  what 
is  this  inconclusiveness  but  the  agnostic 
in  literature,  who  limns  character  in  the 
clutch  of  Nemesis?  Add  to  this  charac- 
teristic, indirection  of  manner,  increasing 
attention  to  subtleties  of  detail,  and  a 
keener  edge  of  cynicism,  and  you  have 
the  main  traits  of  the  present  James. 

The  change  of  this  American  novelist 
under  the  influence  of  the  Time-spirit,  as 
compared  with  his  foreign  fellows,  Daudet 
and  Bjornson,  is  a  more  shadowy  thing, 
something  to  be  felt  subjectively  rather 
than  analytically  described.  It  would  be 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES        127 

a  crude  statement  to  say  that  the  latest 
books  end  badly,  are  more  unpleasant  than 
the  earlier.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that 
one  hears  a  steady  diminuendo  of  the 
romantic  note.  But  it  is  true  that  one 
closes  The  Other  House,  or  'The  Spoils  of 
Poynton,  or  any  one  of  the  several  collec- 
tions of  tales  recently  written,  with  a  sense 
of  despair  —  despair  at  the  helplessness  of 
humanity  in  the  hands  of  a  law  inexorable 
as  the  law  of  gravitation  and  well-nigh  as 
impersonal.  One  might  say  that  for  the 
romanticism  which  makes  room  for  the 
heroic  and  for  the  aspiration  which  shapes 
character  is  substituted  the  romanticism 
of  a  disappointed  poet  who  cannot  escape 
his  birthright,  but  who  intellectually  is  out 
of  sympathy  with  it.  Thus,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  the  fiction  of  James,  progressively 
studied,  is  as  instructive  in  illustrating 
the  influence  of  the  Time-spirit  as  is  the 
work  of  the  other  two  writers.  His  indi- 
viduality being  differentiated  from  theirs 
in  many  ways,  the  result  is  distinct  and 
different.  But  it  is  the  one  force  working 
upon  the  three.  With  Bjornson,  practical 
social  protest ;  with  Daudet,  a  dramatic 
statement  of  the  modern  social  complex 


iz8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

in  cities  ;  with  James,  more  abstract,  more 
purely  psychological,  the  dissonance  be- 
tween action  and  opportunity. 


The  influence,  then,  of  the  Time-spirit 
upon  these  important  modern  writers,  rep- 
resenting different  lands,  can  be  traced 
clearly  enough  in  their  progressive  work. 
It  has  pushed  them  in  the  direction  of 
what  in  literary  parlance  is  called  Realism, 
and  what,  regarding  their  books  as  a 
moral  product,  may  be  described  as  spirit- 
ual discontent  or  despair.  I  repeat  that 
always  the  most  earnest  and  thoughtful 
of  the  makers  of  literature  at  a  given  time 
are  indicators  of  the  soul-pressure.  It  is 
no  mere  coincidence  that  the  growth  of 
realism  into  a  dominant  literary  creed  has 
been  contemporaneous  with  the  incoming 
of  scientific  conceptions. 

Literature  inevitably  reflects  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  problems  of  a  period ; 
ours  is  no  exception.  I  do  not  go  into 
the  question  of  whether  the  change  that 
has  come  over  these  literary  masters 
means  more  gain  than  loss.  There  has 


BJORNSON,    DAUDET,   JAMES        129 

been  both  gain  and  loss.  But  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  how  sensitive  is  literature, 
as  exemplified  in  the  three  men  chosen 
for  illustration,  to  the  moral  and  mental 
growth  of  a  given  period.  But  what 
next?  It  is  likely  that  with  the  readjust- 
ment of  theological  conceptions  and  the 
resultant  new  ethic,  literature,  as  one  of 
the  things  responsive  to  such  change,  will 
react  towards  idealism,  expressing  itself  in 
work  of  a  more  optimistic  temper  and 
romantic  in  spirit.  Indeed,  such  reaction 
has  already  begun  in  the  young  romantic 
school  of  English  fictionists,  led  by  Stev- 
enson and  Kipling  ;  in  the  Scotch  idyllists, 
Barrie,  Crockett,  and  Maclaren ;  and  in 
scattered  phenomena  in  other  lands,  as, 
for  example,  the  symbolist  poets  of  France 
and  the  French  neo-idealism  finding  voice 
in  the  clarion  call  of  a  writer  like  Wagner. 
A  substantial  gain  will  result  from  the 
wonderful  realistic  conquest.  The  com- 
placent, shallow  optimism  of  old  in  litera- 
ture, its  naive  unnaturalness,  are  no  longer 
possible.  But  so  long  as  youth  is  youth 
romanticism  cannot  long  remain  absent 
from  literature.  Schools,  creeds,  tenden- 
cies, are  temporary ;  "  they  have  their 


1 30  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

day  and  cease  to  be."  The  love  of  ad- 
venture, the  belief  in  the  noble  qualities 
of  human  nature,  the  hope  of  a  fairer  to- 
morrow making  amends  for  a  dark  to-day, 
must  "  spring  eternal  in  the  human 
breast."  These  ideals  must  co-exist  with 
man,  and  literature  must  return  to  them 
to  have  a  vital  existence. 


IDEALS    IN   AMERICAN    LITER- 
ATURE 

¥ 

T  OOKING  to  the  future  of  American 
•*-*  literature,  the  questions  to-day  most 
pertinent  to  its  welfare  are  these  :  What 
are  its  younger  makers  believing  ?  and, 
What  are  they  doing  ?  Before  an  answer 
is  attempted,  it  is  well  to  remind  ourselves 
that  America  possesses  a  worthy  and  dig- 
nified literary  past.  The  fact  that  our  first 
great  heptarchy  of  singers  has  lived  and 
left  a  rich  legacy  of  creative  production  is 
enough  to  justify  the  statement ;  nor  is 
the  native  accomplishment  by  any  means 
limited  to  the  work  of  Bryant,  Whittier, 
and  Emerson,  of  Longfellow,  Poe,  Holmes 
and  Lowell.  Time,  which  is  as  just  in 
allotting  a  due  period  for  vigorous  ef- 
fort as  it  is  inexorable  in  announcing  the 
arrival  of  the  age  of  weakness  and  deca- 
dence, is  on  the  side  of  a  land  like  ours, 


1 32  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

young  in  years,  materially  strong,  with  its 
gaze  by  instinct  forward  and  upward  ;  all 
natural  laws  of  development,  personal  or 
national,  declare  in  our  favor. 

And  as  to  themes  and  motives,  surely 
no  country  offers  more  stimulus  to  literary 
endeavor.  With  its  vast  panorama  of 
human  types  and  diversified  territories,  its 
dramatic  shifts  of  fortune,  and  its  pressing 
problems  and  rapid  changes  in  social  con- 
dition, the  United  States  affords  a  field 
not  surpassed  certainly  by  any  one  of  the 
European  nations  where  letters  obtain 
recognition.  The  subject-matter  is  here, 
for  those  who  have  eyes  to  see  and  the 
forthright  arm  of  performance.  Never- 
theless, that  our  makers  of  literature  are  in 
some  danger  of  becoming  comparatively 
insensitive  to  such  robust  and  legitimate 
stimuli  is  a  conclusion  forcing  itself  upon 
the  earnest  student.  This  is  the  day  of 
the  diffusion  of  culture  and  the  spread  of 
the  cosmopolitan  spirit,  touching  literature 
as  they  do  all  else :  a  fact  which  alone 
could  explain  that  denationalization  of 
themes  and  that  adoption  of  transatlantic 
methods  and  models  to  be  noted  in  some, 
though  a  minor  part  of,  American  work. 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE  133 

The  very  advance  in  the  knowledge  and 
practice  of  literature  as  an  art  makes  this 
inevitable,  indeed.  Again,  specialization, 
the  study  of  particular  environments  and 
local  types,  obtains  to  the  exclusion  of 
broader  national  motives  —  this  being  ob- 
vious at  a  glance. 

But  if  a  better  technique,  cosmopolitan- 
ism, and  attention  to  the  local  rather  than 
to  the  national  may  go  some  little  way  tow- 
ard explaining  the  indubitable  change  in 
the  current  mood  and  mind  of  our  literati, 
the  main  cause  is  not  here  :  it  lies  deeper 
and  is  further  to  seek.  The  trouble 
comes  from  what  our  literary  producers 
believe,  or  are  in  danger  of  believing ;  it  is 
in  what  may  be  called  the  negative  spirit 
which  broods  over  modern  effort  in  letters 
that  the  chief  menace  is  to  be  found.  And 
since  doing  follows  believing,  the  work 
will  suffer  unless  the  creed  be  changed  ;  in 
truth,  already  has  suffered,  though  in  a 
less  degree  than  is  true  of  other  lands 
where  this  mephitic  influence  strikes  at  the 
very  vitals  of  all  art. 

The  spirit  that  denies,  as  embodied  in 
Mephistopheles,  eats  like  an  acid  into  the 
heart  of  endeavor ;  it  is  cynical  and  con- 


i34  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

templative  as  against  the  creative  and  opti- 
mistic ;  but  in  presentment  is  smug  and 
decent,  a  la  mode  in  dress,  and  with  the 
devil's  hoof  well  hidden.  In  literature 
it  is  "  artistic,"  in  the  jargon  of  the  day. 
The  paramount  temptation  of  the  newer 
generation  of  literary  makers  in  this  coun- 
try is  the  acceptance,  either  by  the  con- 
scious will  or  by  the  unwitting  creative 
soul,  of  the  "  art-for-art's  sake  "  doctrine, 
that  legacy  of  the  French  naturalistic 
school  already,  by  the  confession  of  its 
great  leader,  Zola,  waning  away  after  thirty 
years  of  dominance.  In  a  sentence,  this 
creed  would  sharply  dissever  art  from 
ethics :  it  concedes  no  morality  to  litera- 
ture save  the  morality  of  the  fine  phrase ; 
it  is  the  artist's  business  to  reproduce 
nature,  and  he  is  in  no  wise  implicated  in 
the  light-and-shade  of  his  picture  except 
to  see  to  it  that  the  copy  is  faithful.  Taken 
over  into  fiction,  poetry,  and  the  drama 
from  the  sister  art  of  painting,  this  banner- 
cry  has  resulted  in  a  literary  product 
whose  foulness  and  lack  of  taste  (accom- 
panied often  by  great  ability)  one  must 
hark  back  to  the  decadent  classics  to 
parallel. 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE  135 

The  originative  cause  of  this  significant 
movement  and  manifestation  has  not,  so 
far  as  I  have  observed,  been  honestly  set 
down.  To  say  that  it  is  the  result  simply 
of  the  increased  perception  of  art,  a  nat- 
ural evolution  of  the  broader  conception 
of  technique  and  the  extension  of  the 
metier  of  literature,  is  to  trifle  with  non- 
essentials,  begging  the  whole  question. 
The  plain  truth  is  that  the  mood  in  art 
and  literature  conveniently  summarized  by 
the  cant  term  "  art  for  art's  sake "  is  be- 
gotten, in  the  last  analysis,  of  spiritual 
unrest  and  the  shift  or  abandonment  of 
religious  convictions  and  ethical  ideals. 
The  interrelation  between  art  and  ethics 
being  intimate  and  indissoluble,  any 
change  in  the  one  is  registered  in  the 
other  sooner  or  later,  as  certainly  as  a 
humor  of  the  blood  tells  tales  on  the 
body's  surface.  Always  in  such  a  case  the 
ethic  of  the  time  is  to  the  art-expression 
as  cause  and  effect.  It  is  idle  to  pother 
with  secondary  causes  when  here  is  the 
native  source.  Our  day  is  one  of  great 
religious  upheaval,  of  the  broadening  and 
clarifying  of  ethical  concepts,  of  personal 
as  well  as  corporate  re-adjustment  of 


136  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

creeds  and  canons.  To  ask  all  this  seethe 
of  thought  and  emotion  to  leave  no  trace 
upon  art,  which  is  the  expression  of  man's 
psychologic  and  spiritual  life  in  terms  of 
power  and  beauty,  were  like  expecting  the 
face  of  a  maelstrom  to  be  as  calm  and 
motionless  as  a  shady  pool  in  a  trout- 
brook.  Men  and  women  of  the  time, 
under  the  stress  of  giving  up  old  beliefs 
and  the  acceptance  of  new,  are  for  the 
moment  shaken,  confused ;  some  feel 
themselves  afloat  in  a  rudderless  boat  on 
a  shoreless  sea;  others,  though  at  first 
dazed,  glimpse  land  ahead  and  keep  a  firm 
hand  on  the  helm.  And  the  elect  of 
letters,  especially  those  of  the  younger 
generation,  in  proportion  to  their  depth 
and  breadth,  reflect  these  storm-signs,  are 
sensitive  to  this  barometer  of  the  ethic 
weather. 

Let  us  not  dodge  the  fact :  the  morbid, 
the  cynical,  the  naturalistic,  and  the  deca- 
dent in  our  present-day  literature,  —  all 
of  this  is,  more  than  aught  else,  a  sure 
emanation  from  the  lack  of  faith  and 
courage  following  on  the  loss  (or  at  least 
change)  of  definite  and  canonical  religious 
conviction.  That  it  cannot  always  be 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE  137 

traced  to  this  efficient  cause  proves  noth- 
ing ;  it  is  said  that  a  mushroom  will 
appear  above  the  earth  an  eighth  of  a 
mile  from  the  fungus  wood  whence  it 
springs ;  yet  dependent  thereupon  by  a 
filament  many  times  too  small  for  seeing 
by  the  unaided  human  eye. 

But  it  would  be  a  false  representation 
of  our  age  and  country  to  bear  down  on 
its  intellectual  struggle  in  this  most  im- 
portant of  thought-domains  and  omit  to 
speak  of  its  affirmative  and  altruistic  side 
—  the  side  of  practical  humanitarianism, 
broader,  more  enlightened,  more  in  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  in  short,  than  the  world 
has  before  witnessed.  The  overthrow  of 
letter-perfect  Bible-infallibility  will  do  good 
in  the  end,  and  has  already  liberated 
people  as  well  as  dismayed  them  ;  while 
the  great  lesson  that  a  life  of  good  is  far 
more  to  be  desired  than  a  hard  and  fast 
adherence  to  a  conservative  creed  begins 
to  put  forth  lovely  fruit  in  church  and 
society.  This  spirit,  too,  is  finding  its 
strong  expression  in  literature,  and  may 
be  relied  upon  as  a  foil  to  the  protuberant 
ugliness  of  the  theory  we  are  diagnosing. 
But  this  should  not  put  us  at  ease  with 


138  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"  art  for  art's  sake."  It  is  to  literature 
what  materialism  is  to  thought ;  and  no 
robing  in  the  splendors  of  Solomon  can 
conceal  the  awful  truth  that  death,  not 
life,  is  in  its  person.  Religion  without 
spiritual  activity  is  pithless  formalism ;  art 
without  spirituality  (or  ethical  beauty, 
which  I  hold  to  be  the  same  thing) 
is  again  a  whited  sepulchre,  full  of  stink- 
ing bones. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  expose  the  fallacy 
of  the  creed  which  cries  up  manner  as  the 
be-all  and  end-all  of  art.  A  mere  glance 
at  world-literature  proves  beyond  perad- 
venture  that  the  moving  and  permanent 
forces  are  those  which  are  healthful,  vital, 
positive,  optimistic.  Homer,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  Cervantes,  Milton,  and 
Browning  are  not  decadents ;  men,  all  of 
them,  cognizant  of  life's  depths  as  well  as 
heights,  but  never  forgetting  that  accom- 
plishment, aspiration,  and  peace  are  articu- 
lated into  our  living  quite  as  truly  as 
doubt,  denial,  and  death.  Hence  these 
masters  are  open-air  influences  and  a  tonic 
to  distraught  humanity.  The  history  of 
any  puissant  nation  teaches  the  same 
thing ;  its  athletic  evolution  and  crest  of 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


»39 


power  mean  a  literature  which  is  bracing 
and  splendid,  its  devolution  a  product  into 
which  the  minor  note  has  crept  and 
through  which  runs  the  self-questioning 
of  decay.  All  records  yield  an  irresistible 
Yea  to  the  query,  Does  not  the  decadent 
in  literature  (when  sincere  and  not  an 
affectation)  always  square  with  a  similar 
state  of  social  and  intellectual  life  in  the 
nation  ?  To  accept  the  poems,  stories, 
and  essays  of  the  school  in  mind  as  legiti- 
mate and  natural  is  to  self-doom  the  coun- 
try's career  and  pronounce  its  noble  work 
done  and  its  maturity  past — a  claim  so 
ridiculous  as  to  be  made  only  by  a  mad- 
man. 

One  may  be  allowed  the  shrewd  sus- 
picion that  some  of  the  decadent  work 
of  England  in  art  and  letters  —  for 
which  such  men  as  Oscar  Wilde,  George 
Moore,  and  Aubrey  Beards! ey  are  respon- 
sible—  is  the  result  of  a  self-conscious 
pose,  not  of  a  reasoned  conviction  or  an 
impulse  of  the  blood.  The  negative 
spirit  in  England  is  bad  enough  and  suf- 
ficiently incongruous,  but  even  if  fit  for 
one  of  the  leading  lands  of  Europe  would 
be  peculiarly  out  of  place  here  in  the 


1 4o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

United  States,  forelooking  to  a  great 
future.  For  American  literature-makers 
to  adopt  —  either  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously —  the  pessimism  and  dry-rot  of 
France,  Spain,  Norway,  and  England  is 
an  anachronism  analogous  to  that  which 
Greece  might  have  furnished  if,  in  the  day 
of  Pericles,  she  had  taken  of  a  sudden  to 
the  pensive  idyls  of  Theocritus  and  the 
erotic  epigrams  of  Meleager.  Our  land, 
entering  into  its  young  heyday  of  national 
maturity,  must  develop  a  literature  to 
express  and  reflect  its  ideals,  or  we  shall 
display  to  the  astonished  world  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  vigorous  people,  hardly  out  of 
adolescence,  whose  voice  is  not  the  big, 
manly  instrument  suiting  its  years,  but  the 
thin  piping  treble  of  senility.  Common 
sense  and  patriotism  alike  forbid  such  an 
absurdity. 

Again,  aesthetics  and  philosophy  declare 
art  for  art's  sake  to  be  a  silly  lie.  The 
confusion  in  the  conceptions  of  a  true 
aesthetic  arises  from  a  too  exclusive  devo- 
tion to  the  indubitable  fact  that  art  is  pri- 
marily a  matter  of  manner,  of  form.  It 
were  idle  to  deny  that  form  is  the  impera- 
tive condition  of  the  acceptability. of  any 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


141 


work  of  art ;  and,  not  unnaturally,  the 
devotees  of  the  current  fallacy  have 
jumped  from  this  to  the  conclusion  that 
form  is  everything,  the  only  test  of  worth 
and  rank  being  technique,  —  which  is  a 
palpable  non  sequitur.  The  so-called  real- 
ists ignore  (often,  though  not  always)  two 
potent  elements  in  an  art  creation  lying  at 
the  base  of  any  sound  theory  of  aesthetics  : 
to  wit,  taste  and  selection.  ./Esthetic  taste 
decides  what  subject-matter  comes  within 
the  purview  of  art,  while  the  selective  in- 
stinct chooses  out  the  typical,  relatively 
important  phenomena  which  shall  be  re- 
produced in  the  magic  peep-show  of  the 
artist.  But  taste  is  constantly  and  brutally 
violated  by  those  who  pride  themselves  on 
being  veritists,  on  telling  the  truth  at  all 
hazards  and  about  all  things.  The  fiction 
of  Guy  de  Maupassant,  the  poetry  of 
Verlaine,  and  the  plays  of  Hauptmann 
are  in  the  way  of  spreading  out  before 
reader  or  auditor  a  dead-level  of  common- 
place, or  favoring  a  deification  of  minutiae 
or  a  faithfulness  in  the  transcription  of 
vileness,  as  if  art's  crowning  merit  were 
the  merit  of  the  catalogue.  Needless  to 
say,  this  is  not  a  characterization  of  their 


1 42  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

work  at  large ;  but  these  are  the  pitfalls 
into  which  their  theory  leads  them  betimes. 
Taste  is  trampled  upon  in  the  creator's 
lust  for  photographic  re-statement;  not 
the  moral  nerves  alone,  but  those  that 
resent  disgustful  associations  as  the  senses 
resent  ill-odors  and  discordant  sounds,  are 
outraged  under  the  sacred  name  of  Truth. 
Even  were  all  this  educative,  the  fact 
would  remain  that  the  aesthetic,  which  is 
the  atmosphere  of  all  artistic  effort,  is  by 
this  effort  made  impossible. 

Moreover,  there  is  no  reason  for  believ- 
ing that  the  dreary  repetition  of  palpably 
sorrowful  and  sickening  data  of  life,  too 
well  apprehended  already  by  poor  human- 
ity, is  of  use  for  either  time  or  eternity. 
The  greater  need  is  an  induction  in  a 
mood  which  rises  superior  to  these  antino- 
mies, bracing  up  men  for  hopeful,  manly 
work,  and,  if  so  may  be,  for  loving  wor- 
ship. It  should  be  the  purpose  "of  all 
good  craftsmen,"  says  J.  A.  Symonds, 
"  not  to  weaken,  but  to  fortify,  not  to  dis- 
pirit and  depress,  but  to  exalt  and  animate." 
And  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  with  the 
end-of-the-century  literary  product  in  mind, 
remarks  with  his  wonted  perception  that 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE  143 

"  it  would  be  a  poor  service  to  spread  cult- 
ure, if  this  be  its  result,  among  the  com- 
paratively innocent  and  cheerful  ranks  of 
men."  If,  as  he  adds,  it  be  necessary 
nowadays  to  have  a  great  deal  of  puling 
over  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are 
placed,"  in  Heaven's  name  let  it  be  done 
off  the  scenes,  not  in  the  presence  of  the 
audience. 

In  the  inartistic  indifference  to  selection, 
too,  these  soi-disant  realists  are  guilty  of  a 
fatal  mistake  and  overlook  a  fundamental 
requisite.  The  numbing  of  the  aesthetic 
sensibilities  so  that  offal  is  not  recognized 
as  such  can  be  understood  as  the  slow 
result  of  pseudo-education;  but  the  ignor- 
ing of  proportion,  of  choice  of  subject,  of 
light  and  shade,  of  planes  and  values  in 
the  very  professions  which  must  learn 
these  things  as  the  A  B  C  of  their  art, 
may  be  set  down  as  an  exhibition  of  stu- 
pidity. I  use  the  hack-words  of  the 
painter,  but  with  literature  in  view.  To 
devote  as  much  care  and  space  and  em- 
phasis in  a  novel  to  the  maunderings  of 
a  drunkard  or  the  coquetries  of  a  harlot, 
neither  of  whom  represents  cases  of  fallen 
and  still  fitfully  re-emergent  nobility,  but 


i44  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

who  belong  to  the  rank  and  file  of  inef- 
fective and  bourgeois  sin,  —  to  give  such 
character-types  more  attention  and  accent 
than  is  bestowed  upon  those  of  larger 
bulk  and  more  ideal  significance  is  an 
example  of  crass  and  vulgar  misjudgment, 
and  this  entirely  aside  from  all  considera- 
tions of  taste  and  morale.  Du  Maurier 
in  giving  the  world  his  Trilby  gave  it 
also  an  example  of  the  true  artist's  hand- 
ling of  such  a  theme,  teaching  the  noble 
lesson  of  ethical  growth  in  the  case  of  a 
grisette,  and  so  preserving  moral  balance 
in  the  depiction  of  Bohemian  scenes  and 
actions.  Eliminate  taste  from  art,  and  its 
corollary,  the  selective  act  of  the  artist  in 
the  midst  of  his  raw  material,  and  you 
reduce  it  to  the  methods  of  science  and  to 
the  products  of  an  unenlightened  industry. 
But  philosophically,  once  more,  the 
theory  does  not  hold  ;  if  it  is  false  aesthet- 
ics, it  is  also  false  psychology.  Beauty  is 
the  one  desideratum  of  all  artistic  creation  ; 
beauty  in  its~  broadest  content,  to  include 
grandeur  and  the  solemn  effects  following 
on  the  representation  even  of  noble  terror 
and  sorrow.  And  Beauty,  be  it  observed, 
is  in  all  respectable  philosophic  analysis 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE  145 

since  Plato,  not  a  quality  confined  within 
the  domain  of  the  aesthetic,  but  at  root  a 
spiritual  thing.  Plato  in  declaring  the 
True,  the  Good,  and  the  Beautiful  to  be 
phases  of  the  one  great  principle  enun- 
ciated, once  and  for  all,  what  Philosophy 
must  but  repeat;  left  a  dictum  not  accept- 
able because  it  is  the  utterance  of  the  great 
Greek,  but  because  his  were  the  insight 
and  the  imagination  to  grasp  what  is  one 
of  the  inexpugnable  verities  of  Thought. 
It  was  this  enlarging  theory  which  Em- 
erson never  tired  of  championing ;  it  was 
with  this  in  his  soul  that  Ruskin  — 
prophet  fallen  upon  evil  days  among 
younger  schools  who  sneer  at  him  as  "  lit- 
erary "  —  said  that  two  things  enter  into  the 
greatness  of  a  picture :  first,  the  subject ; 
second,  the  treatment;  or,  to  rephrase 
it,  inspiration  and  technique  —  and  not 
technique  alone.  The  beautiful  in  art, 
then,  can  no  more  be  separated  from 
ethics,  from  the  spiritual,  than  can  flesh 
and  blood  in  the  vital  organism.  Being 
the  subtlest,  most  precious  thing  in  art, 
it  is  to  be  above  all  else  desired,  striven  for, 
and  yearned  after,  and  without  it  as  an 
incentive  and  an  ideal,  the  detail  of  a 


146  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Meissonier  or  the  metrical  wonders  of  a 
Verlaine  are  of  small  avail.  It  offers, 
moreover,  an  infallible  touchstone  in  the 
grading  of  all  art-work.  If  there  be  no 
choice  in  the  sort  of  life  spread  out  by  the 
artist,  if  the  instinct  of  lust  dissected  with 
truth  and  power  be  as  interesting,  as  in- 
trinsically valuable  and  beautiful,  as  the 
instinct  of  worship,  then  are  all  gradua- 
tions destroyed,  and  it  is  idle  for  man  to 
struggle  up  out  of  his  primeval  apehood 
toward  kinship  with  the  angels.  Thus 
stripped  of  ambiguity,  few  will  refuse  to 
grant  the  idiocy  of  this  attitude  ;  yet  all 
who  contend  for  art  for  art's  sake  im- 
plicitly put  faith  in  the  argument.  To  try 
to  turn  ethics  out  of  art  is  as  foolish  as 
to  sweep  back  the  sea  with  a  broomstick. 
Nature,  driven  out  by  the  Horatian  pitch- 
fork, will  surely  return  again,  and  healthy- 
minded  humankind  can  never  be  cajoled 
by  the  cant  of  the  ateliers  into  believing 
for  a  moment  that  deftness  of  flesh-tints 
and  truthfulness  in  character-drawing  are 
the  equivalents  of  purity  in  artistic  concep- 
tion and  the  inspiration  of  the  creative 
imagination. 

The  younger  literary  folk  of  the  United 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE          147 

States,  then,  are  brought  face  to  face  with 
certain  hard  facts,  and  are  bidden  choose. 
They  may  follow  older  lands,  letting  the 
popular  theory  of  the  day  generate  and 
guide  their  work,  thereby  laying  them- 
selves open  to  the  charge  of  imitation,  un- 
Americanism,  false  aesthetics,  and  false 
psychology.  Contrariwise,  keeping  a  firm 
grip  on  the  essential  truth  that  a  sound 
and  efficient  technique  must  bottom  Amer- 
ican literature  as  it  must  that  of  any  and 
all  lands,  they  may  nevertheless  have  clear 
in  sight  the  still  broader  and  deeper  verity 
that  "  beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty,"  that 
in  the  ethic  atmosphere  only  can  the  crea- 
tive find  its  homeland  and  natural  breath- 
ing-place, beauty  being,  in  the  words  of 
Matthew  Arnold,  "  truth  seen  from 
another  side."  We  are  aware  that  some 
critics,  good  men  and  true,  having  the 
best  interests  of  our  native  literary  and 
art  production  at  heart,  are  fond  of  laying 
chief  stress  on  the  need  of  an  unprovincial 
comparison  of  our  work  with  other  centres 
of  civilization,  in  order  to  avoid  a  fatal 
self-sufficiency  and  the  exclusive  use  of 
local  standards,  —  a  kind  of  literary  Chau- 
vinism. And  coincident  with  this  they 


148  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

talk  continually  of  technique,  and  deem  it 
our  crying  duty  just  now  to  ensure  that, 
lest  talent  and  enthusiasm  run  to  waste. 
Their  word  has  its  share  of  truth,  but  in 
view  of  this  infinitely  graver  menace  im- 
plied in  the  acceptance  of  an  illogical  and 
soulless  principle  and  method,  sure  if  gen- 
erally received  to  result  in  malformation 
in  place  of  wholesome  growth,  it  may  well 
be  ranked  as  of  secondary  importance.  I 
believe  heartily  that  our  litterateurs  are  by 
comparison  scot-free  from  the  worst  phases 
of  the  delusion  ;  the  work  being  done  on 
all  sides  is  vital  and  vigorous. 

Indeed,  the  negative  spirit,  the  cynic 
mood,  and  the  manner  of  the  realist  or  the 
pessimist  belong,  with  us,  rather  to  the 
critics  than  to  the  creators,  the  latter  being 
as  a  class  (though  exceptions  will  occur 
to  all)  sound  at  heart  and  only  eager  to  do 
work  which  shall  be  sane,  broad,  truthful, 
and  wholesome.  The  criticism  which  con- 
tinually depresses  a  fine  young  extrava- 
gance, which  reiterates  the  sacerdotal  func- 
tion of  art-minus-morals,  and  which  sneers 
down  admiration  for  local  impulses  and 
data,  is  not  wanting  in  the  United  States. 
Though  perhaps  not  representative,  it 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE  149 

exists,  and  so  does  a  corresponding  coterie 
among  the  literary  folk  themselves. 

An  American  literature  such  as  is  in 
mind,  and  which  if  true  to  our  literary 
forbears  we  must  make,  shall  be  at  once 
practical  and  ideal  ;  practical,  since  it  is  the 
honest  expression  of  national  life  and 
thought;  ideal,  for  that  it  presents  not 
facts  alone,  but  symbols  —  is  not  merely 
photographic,  but  artistic,  by  reason  of  its 
sensing  the  relative  proportion  of  things 
and  the  all-important  role  of  imaginative 
representation.  Such  a  school  of  writers 
will  beget  poets  and  novelists  who  are  also 
patriots,  clasping  clean  and  loyal  hands, 
and  taking  an  inextinguishable  joy  in  their 
work,  which  they  hope  shall  be  for  the 
healing  of  the  nation.  And  all  the  people 
will  say,  Amen. 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  IN 
ROBERT  BROWNING'S  POETRY.1 

¥ 

THERE  are  three  ways  of  learning 
about  the  culture  life  of  a  past  people 
or  period.  One  may  read  formal  history 
concerning  it :  this  way,  the  way  most 
common  and  easy,  is  least  interesting  and 
least  satisfactory.  One  may  read  contem- 
porary documents  :  and  this,  the  way  of 
scholarship,  is  more  excellent,  but  often 
full  of  difficulties  not  to  be  overborne  by 
the  general.  Or  one  may  read  some 
writer  who,  having  become  saturated  with 
the  spirit  of  his  epoch,  gives  it  out  in  the 
way  of  literature  —  appeals  not  alone  to 
the  knowledge,  but  to  the  emotion  and 
imagination.  This  method  alone  really 
vitalizes  the  past  for  us.  It  makes  by- 
gone figures  move  and  breathe,  bygone 

J  Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  October  26, 
1897. 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  151 

events  become  credible  because  actual  to 
the  mind's  eye. 

There  is  little  danger,  I  fancy,  in  over- 
estimating the  debt  we  all  owe  to  literature 
in  thus  reconstructing  historic  life.  Think 
of  the  contributions  to  historic  fiction : 
Scott,  Dumas,  Thackeray,  Bulwer,  Steven- 
son, Sienkiewicz !  I  read  a  number  of 
the  authoritative  histories  of  Rome,  and 
know  more  or  less  of  Caesar  and  his  city; 
I  read  Shakespeare's  c  Julius  Caesar,'  and 
walk  with  that  great  man  in  the  Forum, 
or  feel  the  dagger  of  Brutus  in  his  breast, 
and  this  in  spite  of  anachronisms  a-many 
and  nai've  indifference  to  archaeological 
verisimilitude.  The  Iron  Duke  once 
remarked  that  he  had  learned  all  his  his- 
tory from  the  master-poet.  Some  admir- 
able words  by  Woodrow  Wilson  are  worth 
repeating  here : 

"  How  are  you  to  enable  men  to  know 
the  truth  with  regard  to  a  period  of  revo- 
lution? Will  you  give  them  simply  a 
calm  statement  of  recorded  events,  simply 
a  quiet,  unaccented  narrative  of  what 
actually  happened,  written  in  a  monotone, 
and  verified  by  quotations  from  authentic 


152  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

documents  of  the  time?  You  may  save 
yourself  the  trouble.  As  well  make  a 
pencil  sketch  in  outline  of  a  raging  confla- 
gration ;  write  upon  one  portion  of  it 
'  flame,'  upon  another  ( smoke ; '  here 

*  town  hall  where  the  fire  started,'  and  there 

*  spot  where  fireman  was  killed.'      It  is  a 
chart,  not  a  picture.     Even  if  you  made  a 
veritable    picture    of  it,    you    could    give 
only   part    of  the    truth   so  long   as  you 
confined    yourself    to    black    and    white. 
Where  would  be  all  the  wild  and  terrible 
colors  of  the  scene  :   the  red  and    tawny 
flame;  the  masses  of  smoke,  carrying  the 
dull  glare  of  the  fire  to  the  very  skies  like 
a  great  signal  banner  thrown  to  the  winds  ; 
the  hot  and  frightened  faces  of  the  crowd ; 
the    crimsoned    gables    down    the    street, 
with   the   faint   light  of  a  lamp  here  and 
there  gleaming  white   from   some   hastily 
opened    casement?       Without  the  colors 
your  picture   is  not  true.     No  inventory 
of  items  will  ever  represent  the  truth  :  the 
fuller  and  more  minute  you   make  your 
inventory,    the    more   will    the    truth    be 
obscured.     The  little  details  will  take  up 
as    much    space   in   the   statement  as  the 
great  totals  into  which  they  are  summed 


RENAISSANCE   PICTURES  153 

up ;  and,  the  proportions  being  false,  the 
whole  is  false.  Truth,  fortunately,  takes 
its  own  revenge.  No  one  is  deceived. 
The  reader  of  the  chronicle  lays  it  aside. 
It  lacks  verisimilitude.  He  cannot  realize 
how  any  of  the  things  spoken  of  can  have 
happened.  He  goes  elsewhere  to  find, 
if  he  may,  a  real  picture  of  the  time,  and 
perhaps  finds  one  that  is  wholly  fictitious. 
No  wonder  the  grave  and  monk-like 
chronicler  sighs.  He  of  course  wrote  to 
be  read,  and  not  merely  for  the  manual 
exercise  of  it;  and  when  he  sees  readers 
turn  away,  his  heart  misgives  him  for  his 
fellow-men.  Is  it  as  it  always  was,  that 
they  do  not  wish  to  know  the  truth  ? 
Alas !  good  eremite,  men  do  not  seek  the 
truth  as  they  should;  but  do  you  know 
what  the  truth  is  ?  It  is  a  thing  ideal,  dis- 
played by  the  just  proportion  of  events, 
revealed  in  form  and  color,  dumb  till 
facts  be  set  in  syllables,  articulated  into 
words,  put  together  into  sentences,  swung 
with  proper  tone  and  cadence.  It  is  not 
resolutions  only  that  have  color.  Nothing 
in  human  life  is  without  it.  In  a  mono- 
chrome you  can  depict  nothing  but  a 
single  incident:  in  a  monotone  you  cannot 


i54  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

often  carry  truth  beyond  a  single  sentence. 
Only  by  art  in  all  its  variety  can  you 
depict  as  it  is  the  various  face  of  life." 

Robert  Browning  has  performed  this 
noble  service  for  us  with  respect  to  Italy 
and  that  intensely  alluring  phase  of  human 
culture  and  progress  known  as  the  Renais- 
sance. In  familiar  words  he  sang — 

"  Open  my  heart  and  you  will  see 
Graven  inside  it,  '  Italy. ' ' ' 

And  this  was  no  rhetorical  vaunt,  but  very 
truth.  The  English  poet  assimilated  with 
a  sympathy  unique  among  his  compeers 
the  past  and  present  of  that  wonderful 
land.  And  as  a  result,  he,  in  a  large  frac- 
tion of  his  work,  reflected  its  life,  the 
body  and  soul  of  it,  as  no  other  literary 
maker  has  begun  to  do.  Its  heart  and 
intellect,  its  passion,  art,  music,  literature, 
and  scholar  lore,  are  interpreted  by  him  not 
as  the  pundit  or  archaeologist  or  historic 
reporter  would  do  it,  —  not  for  the  fact's 
sake,  —  but  after  the  manner  of  the  poet, 
—  for  the  life's  sake,  as  one  part  of  the 
mighty  story  of  man's  spiritual  conflict 
and  growth. 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  155 

The  question  is  sometimes  raised  whether 
the  past  can  really  be  recalled  and  repict- 
ured  with  even  approximate  accuracy. 

Is  it  Rome  or  the  playwright's  more  or 
less  ignorant  idea  of  Rome  that  we  are 
given  ?  This  is,  after  all,  only  a  phase  of 
the  old  argument  of  the  absolute  idealist : 
we  know,  not  matter,  but  our  notion 
thereof.  For  practical  purposes  the  way- 
faring man  has  decided  that  matter  exists ; 
that  if  he  butts  with  his  head  against  a  stone, 
the  stone  will  be  there  and  will  hurt  him. 
Likewise  in  this  matter  of  reconstructing 
vanished  things,  it  can  never  be  proven 
that  the  literary  presentation  of  historical 
characters  and  scenes  is  correct  or  half  cor- 
rect. The  dead  must  needs  come  back  to 
settle  that  for  us.  But  this  much  may 
safely  be  asserted;  of  two  ideas  of  those 
characters  and  scenes,  that  will  do  the  most 
for  us,  and  hit  nearest  to  the  truth,  which 
seems  vital  and  warm  and  veritable  — 
which  enables  us  to  realize  that  such  scenes 
have  been,  such  characters  have  lived  and 
died.  In  the  utter  absence  of  conclusive 
proof,  we  have  quite  as  good  a  right  to 
claim  that  literature  can  make  us  ac- 
quainted with  the  centuries  foregone  as 


1 56  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

our  opponent  has  to  claim  that  to  be  im- 
possible. 

Browning,  then,  has  given  a  superb 
gallery  of  Renaissance  (as  well  as  other) 
historic  pictures,  re-creating  with  dynamic 
force  and  virile  imagination  the  evidence 
of  things  not  seen.  His  method  in  doing 
this  is  all  his  own,  and  calls  for  a  word  of 
comment.  As  it  seems  to  me,  Robert 
Browning's  tendency  to  the  minutiae  of 
learning,  to  what  may  be  called  archaeolog- 
ical detail,  is  bad  in  itself  and  injures  his 
work.  Here  at  the  start  let  me  say  that 
while  I  yield  to  no  one  in  honest  admiration 
and  love  of  this  puissant  maker  of  litera- 
ture, I  do  regard  him  as  one  of  the  most 
unequal  of  poets,  and  a  man  successful  in 
spite  of  his  faults,  not  because  of  them. 

To  come  to  a  special  illustration  af- 
forded by  this  Renaissance  group  of  poems 
(and  the  stricture  applies  equally  to  the 
Browning  historical  poems  in  general) : 
they  do,  indubitably,  assume  too  much 
knowledge  on  the  student's  part ;  plunge 
too  much  in  medias  res,  as  it  were ;  and  by 
a  recondite  multiplicity  of  particulars  put 
us  in  danger  of  not  seeing  the  forest  for 
the  trees.  That  the  poet,  maugre  this 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES 


157 


trait,  does  on  the  whole  interest  us  in  the 
past,  and  stimulate  us  mightily  by  his  pict- 
ures of  it,  is  a  wonderful  tribute  to  his 
genius.  His  imagination  seizes  on  all  the 
intellectual  furnishment  of  the  poems 
until  they  become  molten  in  that  creative 
heat,  and  plastic  to  his  shaping.  A  lesser 
man  with  Browning's  method,  in  this  field, 
would  be  insufferably  dull,  hopelessly  un- 
poetical.  At  times  even  he  succumbs  to 
it,  and  is —  I  say  it  with  humility  —  both 
unpoetic  and  dull.  Let  us  take  that  crux 
Sordello  —  first  of  the  poems  illuminating 
my  theme,  —  and  see  if  the  criticism  ap- 
plies in  that  case.  The  story  of  a  poet's 
inner  life  in  an  Italian  thirteenth-century 
setting,  which  is  the  theme,  seems,  for  a 
psychologic  writer  and  fellow-bard  like 
Browning,  eminently  fitting  :  the  develop- 
ment of  Sordello's  life  and  character,  during 
which  he  loses  himself  only  to  find  himself 
in  death,  has  a  subtle  fascination.  But  the 
question  presents  itself:  In  order  to  make  a 
background  for  such  a  figure,  was  it  neces- 
sary or  advisable  to  embroil  the  reader  in 
such  an  historical  tangle  of  events  ?  Could 
not  the  psychologic  problem  —  the  study  of 
a  gifted,  aspiring  soul,  suffering  from  self- 


158  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

consciousness  and  paralysis  of  the  will  — 
have  been  put  before  the  world  with  simpler 
wise  en  scene?  and  does  not  the  intricacy  of 
the  stage  setting  constitute  a  main  reason 
why  this  production  of  a  very  young  singer 
and  thinker  is  confessedly  one  of  the  most 
difficult  he  has  ever  offered  as  a  stumbling- 
block  for  the  simple  man  and  a  choice  morsel 
for  Browning  societies  ?  I  think  we  must 
say  "  Yes."  It  is  this,  together  with  the  oc- 
cult expression,  the  overplus  of  metaphys- 
ics, and  the  lack  of  organic  arrangement, 
which  brings  about  a  result  I  for  one  can- 
not but  deprecate.  The  teaching,  that 
only  in  Love  can  life  find  its  true  key,  and 
that  the  Poet  —  in  Browning's  mind  the 
ideal  leader  and  purveyor  of  the  higher 
knowledge  —  must  think  not  of  himself 
nor  even  of  his  art  primarily,  but  of  the 
welfare  of  brother-man,  and  that  act  and 
ideal  must  walk  in  healthy  union,  is  noble 
surely,  and  typical  of  the  mature  Brown- 
ing ;  but  the  manner  of  conveying  this  — 
there's  the  rub  !  Can  Bordello  be  under- 
stood without  a  key  ?  Can  it  with  that 
aid,  or  at  any  rate  without  much  vexation 
and  weariness  of  the  flesh  ?  To  judge  by 
my  own  experience,  the  reply  is  a  negative. 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  159 

Those  to  whom  it  truly  is  a  lucid  and 
steadily  inspiring  creation  are  of  a  supe- 
rior order  of  being — an  order  I  admire 
from  afar,  but  may  not  fellow  with.  But 
the  whole  poem  is  one  thing,  parts  and 
passages  quite  another.  In  our  quest  for 
Renaissance  pictures  Sordello  often  re- 
wards us  ;  Heaven  forbid  I  should  deny  it. 
The  Guelph  and  Ghibelline  feuds  and  the 
Lombard  League  are  interwoven  with  the 
personal  history  of  the  protagonist ;  and  if 
after  a  reading  of  the  poem  we  do  not  un- 
derstand those  far-away  and  involved  inter- 
necine quarrels,  we  do  have  ideas  or  images 
of  mediaeval  life —  its  hot  gusts  of  passion, 
its  political  ambitions,  its  fierce,  coarse 
brutalities,  its  lyric  episodes  of  love,  its 
manifold  picturesqueness  —  such  as  no 
mere  chronicle  could  have  given  us.  And 
this  because  a  poet,  saturating  himself  with 
contemporaneous  documents  in  the  British 
Museum,  and  thereafter  visiting  the  scenes 
he  would  depict,  really  was  able  to  recon- 
struct a  long-done  piece  of  human  action 
so  that  it  had  body  and  soul,  heat  and  sub- 
stance. As  a  single  brief  example,  take 
this  passage  from  the  third  book,  where 
Sordello  returns  to  Verona  at  the  call  of 
his  mistress,  Palma: 


160  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

" .   .    .   I'  the  palace,  each  by  each, 

Sordello  sat  and  Palma  :  little  speech 

At  first  in  that  dim  closet,  face  with  face 

(Despite  the  tumult  in  the  market-place) 

Exchanging  quick  low  laughters  :   now  would  rush 

Word  upon  word  to  meet  a  sudden  flush, 

A  look  left  off,  a  shifting  lips'  surmise  — 

But  for  the  most  part  their  two  histories 

Ran  best  thro'  the  locked  fingers  and  linked  arms. 

And  so  the  night  flew  on  with  its  alarms 

Till  in  burst  one  of  Palma 's  retinue ; 

'  Now,  Lady  !  '  gasped  he.     Then  arose  the  two 

And  leaned  in  to  Verona's  air,  dead-still. 

A  balcony  lay  black  beneath  until 

Out,  'mid  a  gush  of  torchfire,  gray-haired  men 

Came  on  it  and  harangued  the  people  :   then 

Sea-like  that  people  surging  to  and  fro 

Shouted,  '  Hale  forth  the  carroch  —  trumpets,  ho, 

A  flourish  !      Run  it  in  the  ancient  grooves  ! 

Back  from  the  bell  !    Hammer  —  that  whom  behooves 

May  hear  the  League  is  up  !      Peal  —  learn  who  list, 

Verona  means  not  first  of  towns  break  tryst 

To-morrow  with  the  League  !  ' 

Enough.      Now  turn  — 
Over  the  eastern  cypresses  :   discern  ! 
Is  any  beacon  set  a-glimmer  ? 

Rang 

The  air  with  shouts  that  overpowered  the  clang 
Of  the  incessant  carroch,  even  :    '  Haste  — 
The  candle's  at  the  gateway  !  ere  it  waste, 
Each  soldier  stand  beside  it,  armed  to  march 
With  Tiso  Sampler  through  the  eastern  arch  !  "' 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  161 

As  we  read  this  and  similar  passages  we 
get  a  sense  surely  of  that  day  of  feudalism 
and  chivalry,  of  vari-colored  splendor, 
well-nigh  barbaric  personal  conduct,  and 
dire  cruelties,  beauty  and  cruelty  clashing 
together  like  iron  and  gold,  —  a  day  of 
crude,  strong  contrasts,  of  impressive  chia- 
roscuro. To  run  over  a  selected  page  of 
Browning  is  to  comprehend  this  more 
vividly  than  by  studying  the  whole  of 
Symonds'  Renaissance  in  Italy,  noble  work 
as  that  is.  Such  is  the  service  of  dynamic 
literature.  Such  is  rendered  only  in  flashes 
by  Sordello.  This,  and  its  psychologic 
suggestion,  constitute  the  main  value  of 
the  poem. 

If  we  turn  to  The  Grammarian  s  Fu- 
neral, we  shall  find  a  picture  almost  steadily 
true  poetry,  that  with  rarest  insight  and 
grasp  portrays  the  scholar-side  of  the  age, 
as  the  other  does  its  politico-religious 
strife.  It  seems  a  parlous  thing,  a  priori, 
to  make  the  figure  of  a  philologist  pathetic. 
But  Browning  does  it.  The  importance 
of  learning  has  never  been  more  nobly 
limned.  To  be  sure,  this  grammarian  is 
no  philologer  in  our  modern  sense :  the 
study  of  language  was  to  him  a  means,  not 


1 62  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

an  end,  —  but  that  is  true  of  all  great 
word-wizards  mediaeval  and  modern  ;  men, 
for  example,  like  the  brothers  Grimm  in 
Germany. 

I  know  of  no  lyric  of  the  poet's  more 
representative  of  his  peculiar  and  virile 
strength  than  this,  in  that  it  makes  vibrant 
and  thoroughly  emotional  an  apparently 
unpromising  theme.  In  relation  to  the 
Renaissance,  to  the  age  of  the  revival  of 
learning,  the  moral  is  the  higher  inspiration 
derived  from  the  new  wine  of  the  classics, 
so  that  what  in  later  times  has  cooled  down 
too  often  to  a  dry-as-dust  study  of  the 
husks  of  knowledge  is  shown  to  be,  at  the 
start,  a  veritable  revelling  in  the  delights 
of  the  fruit —  the  celestial  fruit  which  for 
its  meet  enjoyment  called  for  more  than  a 
life  span,  and  looked  forward,  as  Hutton 
has  it,  to  an  "  eternal  career."  Note  that 
the  faith  in  a  future  life  conditions  and  en- 
larges the  view ;  as  yet  the  scientific  atti- 
tude and  mind  had  not  come  to  the  latter- 
day  agnosticism.  And  how  picture-like 
Browning  makes  it !  The  solemn  proces- 
sion up  the  mountain,  the  master,  "  famous 
calm,  and  dead,"  in  the  midst,  loftily  lying 
in  his  aerial  sepulchre  among  the  clouds 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  163 

(and  intermittently  the  directions  interpo- 
lated to  give  dramatic  reality),  —  here  again 
the  traditions  and  ideals  of  the  time  are  con- 
veyed indirectly,  and  therefore  with  three- 
fold force  ;  the  poetry  of  it  is  the  chief 
thing,  the  one  thing,  in  sooth,  for  the 
general  reader.  For  let  us  bear  in  mind 
ever  that  any  poet's  first  mission  is  to  de- 
light, not  to  instruct.  The  instructions 
should  be  unawares,  by  indirection.  The 
poet  who  confounds  the  two  is  in  danger 
of  the  council,  as  a  didactic  philosopher, 
or  a  metaphysician,  or  a  scientist, — good 
roles  all,  but  not  his. 

The  Grammarian  s  Funeral,  then,  is  a 
noble  vindication  of  the  possibilities  rather 
than  the  probabilities  of  that  calling,  hav- 
ing its  historic  interest  in  the  implied  high 
aims  in  scholarship  of  the  time  contrasted 
with  later  periods.  No  one  Renaissance 
characteristic  stands  out  in  higher  relief 
than  this  of  learning.  It  is  amazing  how 
it  cohabits  with  lust,  cruelty,  and  what 
seems  to  our  modern  sensibilities  an 
inconceivable  lack  of  ethical  development, 
existing  in  a  devotion  and  an  attainment 
that  even  now  seem  marvellous.  The 
middle-age  humanists  were  wonderful  in 


164  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

this  respect.  Scholarship  is  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  facets  flashed  down  to  us 
from  that  many-colored  stone  called  the 
Renaissance. 

The  art  side  of  the  re-birth,  a  phase 
best  loved  by  our  poet,  if  one  may  judge 
by  the  frequency  with  which  he  wrote  of 
it  (to  say  nothing  of  his  easy  intimacy 
with  all  its  figures,  principles,  and  scenes), 
is  illustrated  in  that  very  characteristic  and 
truly  great  dramatic  monologue,  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi. 

The  wayward  child  of  genius  is  a  fasci- 
nating object  of  study  always ;  here  is  the 
type  in  the  ecclesiastico-art  atmosphere, 
with  its  dual  blend  of  elements  which  did  so 
much  for  Italian  painting,  and  the  golden 
period  of  creative  picture-making.  Sup- 
pose some  one  to  take  up  the  poem  and 
to  read  it  with  no  preparatory  study  of 
the  harum-scarum  monk  artist,  and  only 
such  knowledge  of  the  stage-setting  as 
would  be  commanded  by  a  person  of  fair 
education.  No  doubt  such  an  one  would 
lose  much,  especially  in  this  most  repre- 
sentative genre  of  Browning's,  the  dramatic 
monologue,  which,  by  its  very  method, 
assumes  so  much  on  our  part  and  pro- 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  165 

gresses  by  revealing  character,  not  by  narra- 
tive in  the  usual  sense.  Yet  I  am  much  mis- 
taken if  a  vivid  sense  of  mediasvalism  and 
of  the  Renaissance  were  not  the  result. 
In  the  first  place,  Fra  Lippo  is  visualized 
and  vitalized  —  no  mere  name  he  on  the 
left-hand  lower  corner  of  his  canvases, 
after  reading  the  poem,  but  a  very  human 
flesh  and  blood  creature,  with  a  Bohemian- 
ish  streak  in  him  that  makes  serenades 
and  moonlight  and  luring  girl-faces  irre- 
sistible to  him,  so  that  he  must  perforce 
take  French  leave  of  his  fine  quarters  in 
the  Medici  palace  and  roam  the  streets  in 
quest  of  frolic  adventure,  to  be  brought 
up  with  a  sharp  turn  by  the  Florentine 
officials.  It  is  all  delightfully  disreputa- 
ble and  human.  Fra  Lippo,  in  Italy, 
Villon,  a  not  far  from  contemporaneous 
son  of  genius  in  another  art  and  land,  we 
come  to  know  because  whereas  in  their 
work  we  think  of  them  on  the  side  of 
gift  and  power  —  in  their  erring  natural 
lives  we  recognize  the  touch  of  nature  that 
makes  the  whole  world  kin.  And  then, 
too,  how  dramatically  we  are  presented 
with  the  fact  of  the  more  or  less  unholi- 
ness  of  those  in  holy  orders  at  that  time ! 


1 66  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

This  we  are  aware  of  theoretically  :  in  a 
poem  like  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  it  is  worked 
out  in  a  scene  .with  an  ex-monk  as  hero, 
and  what  was  assumed  as  history  is 
clothed  on  with  life.  And  still  further  : 
what  a  glimpse  of  mediaeval  Florence  is 
given  —  beautiful  lily  of  the  Arno  !  We 
may  cry  with  the  poet,  "  It's  as  if  I  saw 
it  all!" 

"  Here's  spring  come,   and  the  nights  one  makes  up 

bands 
To  roam  the  town  and   sing  out  carnival." 

We  feel  the  street-life,  and  we  visit  the 
convent,  with  its  cluster  of  brothers  agape 
with  admiration  at  this  early  realist  who 
paints  people  as  they  are,  until  the  monk- 
ish circle  is  instructed  by  the  Prior  that 
that  way  is  all  wrong,  — 

"  Your  business  is  to  paint  the  souls  of  men." 

The  description  and  criticism  of  the  faults 
and  virtues  of  the  art  creed  and  art  ac- 
complishment of  the  time  are  wonderfully 
acute.  Lippi  was  wiser  than  his  critics, 
knowing  "The  value  and  significance  of 
flesh,"  and  in  spite  of  all  his  tomfoolery 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  167 

and  looseness  is  an  idealist,  and  so  hangs 
on  to  the  belief  that  the  world  "  means 
intensely  and  means  good." 

In  dramatic  pieces  like  this,  and  the 
still  greater  Andrea  del  Sarto,  we  are  let 
into  the  very  heart  and  get  the  blood-beat 
of  the  blooming-time  of  creative  painting. 
If  ever  a  phase  of  life  were  done  from  the 
inside,  as  we  say,  it  is  here :  for  once  we 
are  given  "The  time  and  the  place  and 
the  loved  one  all  together." 

The  range  and  variety  of  Browning  in 
his  Renaissance  picture-making  is  again 
exemplified  in  the  very  different  poem, 
"  The  Bishop  orders  his  Tomb."  Here 
we  have  limned  for  us  the  religious  world 
on  its  side  of  ecclesiastical  form,  pomp, 
and  show.  It  is  revealed  through  the 
person  of  a  Roman  prelate  who  is  seamy 
in  his  life,  and  worldly  and  worldly-wise  on 
his  deathbed,  in  articulo  mortis.  It  is  a 
terrible  picture  in  its  way ;  another  intense 
monologue  in  form,  and  vibrant  with 
emotion  —  spite  of  its  rough,  interjacula- 
tory  manner.  Art  is  illustrated  from 
another  angle :  this  soiled,  proud,  passion- 
ate, envious  bishop,  a  good  hater  to  the 
last,  would  have  his  monument  a  master- 


168  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

piece,  and  how  splendid  his  description  of 
it,  particular  on  particular,  until  the  mind's 
eye  sees  the  imposing,  costly  thing!  He 
has  the  age's  scholarship,  too,  and  would 
have  naught  but  good  Latin  inscribed  on 
the  stone ;  and  in  all  his  piteous  request  to 
his  equally  worldly  sons  he  knows,  poor 
worldling,  that  they  will  take  his  riches 
and  never  grant  his  last  prayer.  A  sense 
of  the  selfish  human  animal,  the  same  in  all 
centuries,  is  conveyed  savagely,  truthfully, 
by  this  dramatic  poem ;  while  the  local 
media  are  also  brought  before  us  in  a 
wonderful  way.  The  historical  setting  is 
not  so  much  thought  of  here;  the  atmos- 
pheric impression  is  everything.  Yet  at 
what  other  period,  in  what  other  country, 
would  a  bishop  have  the  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  and  taste  for  architecture  shown 
in  this  man's  talk  —  let  alone  his  wish  for 
aesthetic  propriety  and  fitness  at  a  moment 
when  secondary  things  and  things  not 
taking  hold  on  the  central  core  of  being 
pass  out  of  mind  ?  How  could  the  fact 
that  the  bishop  cared  supremely  for  an 
artistically  beautiful  sepulchre  —  cared  for 
it  as  much  as  he  did  to  crow  over  a  rival 
in  effigy  —  be  more  strikingly  set  before 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES       '    169 

us,  and  we  be  instructed  at  once  in  the 
main  passions  and  interests  of  universal 
man  and  of  Renaissance  man  ?  Once 
again  we  emerge  from  the  poem,  having 
touched  the  body  of  the  Renaissance  and 
felt  it  to  be  not  a  cold  corpse,  but  warm 
and  moved  by  breath. 

The  poem,  The  Heretic's  Tragedy,  still 
further  illuminates  our  subject,  and  is  one 
of  those  grim  sardonic  pieces  very  illus- 
trative of  a  certain  phase  of  Browning's 
genius  —  a  genre  in  which  he  has  done 
some  of  his  strongest  work.  This  time  it 
is  that  darker  side  of  the  Renaissance' 
social  complex  exploited  by  its  theology. 
It  is  right  not  to  forget  this  reverse  side 
of  the  shield,  in  directing  main  attention 
to  its  splendid  face  whereupon  art  has 
carven  deathless  characters.  I  find  a  great 
relish  in  such  a  setting  forth  of  the  intel- 
lectualizing  of  a  dark  age  —  for  in  respect 
of  the  substance  of  religion  it  was  dark 
compared  with  our  own.  How  the  poem 
plunges  us  back  into  an  all  but  inconceiv- 
able atmosphere  of  hair-splitting  dogma 
and  inhuman  heartlessness  !  Man  delights 
in  the  burning  alive  of  his  fellows  :  God  is 
the  jealous  God  of  the  old  dispensation ; 


1 70  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

and  how  admirably  this  state  of  mind, 
naively  unconscious  of  its  own  atrocity  and 
crudity,  is  embalmed  in  this  terrible  dra- 
matic lyric,  with  its  shuddering  realism, 
whose  effect  is  heightened  tenfold  by  its 
awful  joviality  of  tone  : 

"  Sling  him  fast  like  a  hog  to  scorch, 

Spit  in  his  face,  then  leap  back  safe, 
Sing  '  Laudes  '  and  bid  clap-to  the  torch." 

And,  what  is  most  pertinent  to  our  pur- 
pose, —  how  pictorial  it  all  is  !  The  poor 
wretch  burning  there  can  be  seen  as  plainly 
by  us  as  by  the  Paris  mob  that  jeered  at 
his  contortions.  Once  more  a  far-away 
scene  is  not  so  much  put  before  us  on  a 
flat  surface  as  set  about  us  atmospherically 
and  with  perspective,  so  that  we  are  in  it 
and  of  it.  This  is  a  wonderful  thing  to 
do,  especially  in  a  case  where  all  is  alien  to 
our  present  notions.  The  poem  is  at  once 
objective  and  subjective,  a  canvas  and  an 
emotional  and  moral  experience. 

These  Renaissance  poems,  then,  —  aside 
from  their  abstract  virtue  as  intensely  felt 
and  virilely  wrought  verse,  —  perform  one 
of  the  great  and  rare  services  possible  to 
literature.  They  make  us  to  know  past 


RENAISSANCE    PICTURES  171 

beliefs  and  feelings,  people  and  actions,  so 
that  all  becomes  veritable  and  explicable : 
to  know  them  not  formally  and  by  effort 
and  intention,  but  spontaneously,  through 
the  dynamic  communication  of  heat  and 
light.  Instead  of  the  statics  of  knowledge 
we  are  given  the  dynamics  of  life. 


Old  English  Poetry 


I 

OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY 


THE  day  is  fast  arriving  when  attention 
will  be  paid  to  the  treasures  of  our 
older  English  poetry  as  such.  It  is  natural 
enough  that  the  study  of  the  language  in 
its  philological  aspects  should  be  prece- 
dent to  an  appreciation  of  the  literary  side 
of  the  subject.  This  has,  in  fact,  been  the 
case.  But  as  special  students  of  English 
have  been  long  familiarizing  themselves 
with  the  linguistic  problems  in  connection 
with  Old  English  work,  the  ground  has 
been  prepared  for  those  whose  chief  inter- 
est is  in  the  humanities,  and  who  would 
use  the  acquired  land  as  a  field  for  the 
cultivation  of  the  flowers  of  song.  Signs 
are  not  lacking  that  what  has  been  re- 
garded as  the  private  preserves  of  special- 
ists will  soon  be  the  legitimate  property  of 
all  lovers  of  literature.  It  is  significant 
that  an  attempt  to  offer  a  literary  transla- 


176  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

tion  of  Beowulf,  our  first  great  English 
epic,  by  an  American  scholar,  Professor 
Hall,  of  William  and  Mary  College,  has 
been  followed  hard  on  by  another  from 
English  hands  —  that  of  Professor  Earle. 
Dr.  Gummere's  recent  admirable  work  on 
Germanic  Origins,  with  its  copious  and 
spirited  renderings  from  Beowulf  and 
other  Old  English  poems,  is  again  a  book 
pointing  the  same  way.  Mr.  Stopford 
Brooke's  fine  Early  English  Literature  is 
a  later  hopeful  sign. 

It  is  high  time,  then,  to  approach  the 
hoary  remains  of  English  song,  not  so 
much  in  the  spirit  of  comparative  philol- 
ogy as  in  that  of  aesthetic  appreciation. 
In  this  mood  I  write  of  two  obvious  and 
representative  aspects  of  this  older  litera- 
ture, which  richly  repay  sympathetic  study 
—  a  study  which  may  be  heartily  bespoken 
it.  A  foreword  as  to  nomenclature.  I  use 
the  term  Old  English  as  synonymous  with 
Anglo-Saxon  and  as  preferable  thereto  ;  it  is 
the  designation  applied  by  progressive  stu- 
dents to  all  our  literary  remains  in  Eng- 
land from  the  earliest  monuments  extant 
to  about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  ; 
thence  to  the  year  1500,  say,  we  may 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  177 

speak  of  Middle  English  ;  the  remaining 
literature  being  denominated,  of  course, 
Modern  English.  Perhaps  the  strongest 
argument  for  thus  naming  our  earlier 
literature  is  the  emphasis  it  puts  on  the 
fact  that  we  are  dealing  with  but  one 
tongue,  seen  in  its  varying  stages  of 
growth.  An  idea  of  the  vital  connection 
between  Beowulf  and  Browning  is  thus 
inculcated ;  whereas,  if  we  say  Anglo  Saxon 
a  feeling  of  something  foreign  in  kind  as 
well  as  distant  in  time  is  begotten.  It  is 
this  oneness,  this  organic  relation  of  the 
English  language  and  literature  through 
all  sequences  of  its  development,  which  is 
now  being  accented  by  scholars,  and  hence 
those  terms  are  best  which  are  in  conform- 
ity with  that  conception. 

In  spite  of  this  assertion  that  our  older 
poetry  should  be  regarded  as  of  a  piece 
with  what  is  more  modern,  it  must  be 
confessed  frankly  that  at  the  first  ap- 
proach to  it  the  student  is  likely  to  be 
repelled,  or,  at  any  rate,  given  pause. 
On  the  threshold  he  is  met  with  a  rude 
setting  aside  of  verse  canons  and  con- 
ventions of  to-day,  while  he  is  bidden  to 
breathe  an  atmosphere  which  substitutes 


i78  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

a  sharp  and  bracing  keenness  for  the  soft 
languors  and  southland  allurements  to 
which  he  may  have  been  more  accus- 
tomed. This  poetry,  forsooth  !  This  is 
barbaric,  inchoate,  an  outrage  on  the 
sesthetic,  and  unworthy  even  of  the  nether 
slopes  of  Parnassus.  Somewhat  so  runs 
his  thought.  But  persisting  in  the  will  to 
get  at  one  with  this  strange  product,  the 
same  student  in  due  time  begins  to  feel 
the  tonic  of  the  air  ;  to  habituate  himself 
to  the  rough,  bold  grandeur  of  the 
scenery  ;  to  enjoy  the  natural  cadences  of 
the  wind  that  harps  in  his  ear.  In  other 
words,  what  seemed  irregularity  of  rhythm 
is  seen  to  be  a  looser-moving  but  law- 
abiding  metre;  harshnesses  or  word-use 
reveal  their  fitness  and  vigor ;  and  a  deep, 
rich  music,  a  fuller-mouthed  tone-color,  is 
heard,  such  as  modern  words  and  melodies 
are  more  miserly  in  offering;  while  uncouth 
inversions  and  sentence-gyrations  resolve 
themselves  into  the  fit  and  felicitous  way 
whereby  those  gleemen  of  long  ago  vented 
the  song  and  sentiment  that  was  in  them. 
And  so  there  comes  a  real  delight  in  the 
virile  strength  and  grave  sub-tones  of 
music  germane  to  Old  English  verse. 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  179 

As  is  now  pretty  well  understood,  allit- 
eration, employed  with  regularity  and 
artistic  consciousness,  is  to  Old  English 
poetry  what  rhyme  is  to  modern,  the  lat- 
ter being  unknown.  In  offering  a  trans- 
lation, then,  of  such  verse,  its  alliterative 
character,  as  well  as  its  rhythmic  character, 
may  be  reproduced  when  possible,  or  the 
more  familiar  and  pleasing  form,  blank 
verse,  be  used.  In  the  following  papers 
the  Old  English  line  is  used  in  the  one 
case,  blank  verse  in  the  other,  that  the  two 
may  be  compared.  As  to  the  law  of  the 
use  of  alliteration,  it  is  enough  to  say  here 
that  every  normal  Old  English  line  has 
four  accents,  divided  by  a  caesura,  and  that 
three  of  these  —  the  first,  second,  and 
third  —  take  the  alliteration  on  the  rhyth- 
mically accented  word.  Add  to  this  that 
the  lilt  or  measure  is  prevailingly  trochaic 
with  such  intermixture  of  dactyls  as  to 
give  a  freer  and  less  monotonous  effect, 
and  an  intelligent  notion  of  the  mechan- 
ics of  Old  English  poetry  may  be  had. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  oldest  verse- 
type  in  English  is  opposed  in  its  move- 
ment to  what  may  be  called  the  modern 
verse-type,  par  excellence;  namely,  the 


i8o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

iambic  pentameter  as  seen  in  blank  verse. 
This  fact  suggests  psychologic  causes  and 
offers  a  fascinating  line  of  inquiry.  How 
different  the  swing  of  the  tripping  trochees 
or  leaping  dactyls  from  the  stately  march 
of  the  line  of  Marlowe  or  Shakespeare  ! 
I  subjoin  a  single  Old  English  line  with 
the  stresses  marked,  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion : 

"  Hale  hilde-deor  Hrothgar  gretan." 
(««  The  hale  hero,  Hrothgar  to  greet.") 

Two  other  characteristics  of  Old  Eng- 
lish verse  remain  to  be  mentioned  —  the 
metaphor  and  parallelism.  The  meta- 
phor is  to  our  primary  poetry  what  the 
simile  is  to  its  later  development ;  it  is  a 
stylistic  feature  permeating  all  Old  Eng- 
lish writing,  and  it  imparts  an  effect  of 
vividness  and  force  that  give  the  literary 
product  a  distinct  complexion  of  its  own. 
Readers  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  are 
aware  what  a  leading  role  is  there  played 
by  the  metaphor  —  or  kenning,  as  it  is 
known  in  Old  Norse  poetry — when  com- 
pared with  its  modern  use.  But  with 
Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries  the 
simile  (which  is  only  the  metaphor  ex- 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  18 1 

tended)  is  also  made  much  of,  sharing 
the  rhetorical  honors  with  its  older  fel- 
low-figure. But  in  the  Old  English  days, 
the  simile  was  practically  undeveloped ;  it 
was  for  a  later  and  more  self-conscious  age 
to  cultivate  it.  Thus,  in  the  epic  of 
Beowulf,  a  composition  of  about  3,200 
lines,  there  is  but  one  simile  in  the  mod- 
ern expanded  sense,  while  metaphors  star 
every  page.  The  gain  in  strength  by  this 
close-packed,  terse  figuration  is  immense. 
Again,  Old  English  shares  with  Hebrew 
poetry  the  characteristic  of  parallelism 
or  repetition  of  the  thought  in  slightly 
altered  phrasing.  The  Hebrew  Script- 
ures offer  hundreds  of  familiar  and  well- 
loved  illustrations :  "  For  a  thousand 
years  in  thy  sight  are  but  as  yesterday 
when  it  is  past,  and  as  a  watch  in  the 
night."  Similar  constructions  continually 
meet  the  student  of  Old  English  verse,  or 
indeed  of  Germanic  verse  in  general, 
whether  English,  Low  or  High  German, 
or  Scandinavian.  At  bottom  this  so- 
called  parallelism  is,  in  all  probability, 
the  creature  of  the  emotional  impulse 
which  by  the  law  of  its  being  demands 
a  wave-like  repetend  of  the  thought  ex- 


1 82  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

pressed,  by  clauses  of  parallel  formation. 
The  impulse,  too,  being  emotional,  is 
also  rhythmical,  and  here  is  another 
reason  for  repetition.  In  Old  English, 
however,  what  was  in  its  genesis  impul- 
sive and  of  the  emotions  became  a 
formal  mark  of  verse,  and  a  most  effec- 
tive rhetorical  device,  when  skilfully 
managed. 

With  these  brief  comments  upon  some 
of  the  most  obvious  phenomena  of  Old 
English  poetry  on  its  subjective  and  ob- 
jective sides,  let  us  come  at  our  study 
of  two  of  its  aspects. 


OLD    ENGLISH   POETRY  183 


II 

NATURE     IN     OLD    ENGLISH 
POETRY 


TN  the  epic  of  Beowulf,  our  first  great 
J-  English  epic,  with  almost  countless  ref- 
erences to  the  winter  season,  the  sweet, 
antithetical  season  of  summer  is  not  once 
mentioned.  This  fact  is  significant,  and 
stands  for  a  good  deal.  At  first  it  appears 
sufficiently  astonishing.  England  is  fair 
now  in  the  season,  and  it  was  so  at  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  century  when  Monk 
Langland  began  to  sing : 

"  In  a  summer  season 

When  soft  was  the  sun, 

I  was  weary  of  wandering,  and  went  me  to  rest 

Under  a  broad  bank  by  a  bourne  side." 

No  winter  rhyme  this,  of  a  truth.  It  was 
so,  too,  a  hundred  years  earlier,  in  1300, 
when  a  nameless  poet  warbled  of  spring  in 
this  wise : 

'*  Between  the  March  and  April, 
When  sprays  begin  to  spring, 


1 84  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

The  little  fowls  they  have  their  will 
In  their  own  way  to  sing." 

If  this  be  the  note  of  the  bards  in  the 
year  of  grace  1400  or  1300,  why  not  in 
the  seventh  or  eighth  century,  five  hun- 
dred years  before,  which  is  the  presuma- 
ble date  of  the  Beowulf?  It  is  hardly  a 
satisfactory  answer  to  say  that  the  beauty 
of  nature  was  there,  but  not  the  eyes  to 
see  it.  Old  English  literature  is  rife  with 
passages  testifying  to  appreciation  of  the 
sterner  moods  of  nature,  a  cognizance  of 
her  wintry  phenomena,  her  rigors  of  land 
and  sky  and  water.  It  is  only  on  the  side 
of  warmth  and  bloom  and  fragrance  that 
the  poetry  is  so  wofully  lacking  in  expres- 
sion, so  insensitive  to  loveliness  and  joy- 
ance.  The  explanation  lies  in  large  part 
elsewhere.  To  give  one  reason  :  the  first 
poetry  written  down  in  England  partakes 
of  the  atmosphere  of  the  physical  condi- 
tions of  the  country  whence  come  the 
original  settlers,  namely,  that  of  the  low- 
lying  lands  of  the  Baltic,  the  North  Sea, 
and  the  more  northerly  Atlantic.  Beowulf 
itself,  for  example,  is  entirely  un-English 
and  Continental  in  its  locale,  the  scene 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  185 

shifting  from  Denmark  to  Sweden.  And 
so  with  the  lesser  poetical  product :  it  is 
the  climate  of  the  lowlands,  of  Norwegian 
fiords  and  Danish  nesses,  that  is  in  the 
English  literature  of  the  earliest  period  of 
production ;  hence  it  is  the  darker  and 
grimmer  phases  of  nature  which  are  voiced 
and  pictured  in  the  poetry.  A  striking 
illustration  of  this  is  to  be  seen  in  an  Old 
English  idiom.  It  was  not  the  Anglo- 
Saxon's  way  to  use  the  word  "year"  as  a 
denominator  of  time  ;  he  spoke  of  "  thirty 
of  winters  "  instead  of  thirty  years,  evi- 
dently an  unconscious  tribute  to  the  prom- 
inence of  that  cold  and  nipping  season  in 
his  calendar. 

Another  explanation  of  this  fondness  of 
our  ancestors  for  winter  landscape  brings  us 
within  the  domain  of  psychology.  The 
first  poetry  of  the  race  is  pre-Christian, 
heathen  in  warp  and  woof;  and  in  the 
literature  which  antedates  Christianity  — 
which  has  Odin  and  Thor  in  the  heavens 
and  fatalism  as  its  ethical  creed,  instead  of 
the  sunburst  of  hope  and  joy  which  comes 
with  the  white  Christ  and  his  cheerier 
promises  of  happiness  and  heaven  —  the 
poetic  spirit  is  distinctly,  indubitably,  more 


1 86  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

joyless,  less  perceptive  of  the  bright  side 
of  things.  Nature,  which  to  the  modern 
poet  is  but  the  garment  of  God,  was  to  his 
Old  English  forebears  a  chilling  rather  than 
an  inspiriting  spectacle ;  for  back  of  the 
myth-gods  themselves  stood  Fate,  Neces- 
sity, with  laws  that  no  man  may  dodge, 
and  with  an  iron  will  in  place  of  a  tender 
heart.  Germanic  mythology  and  literature 
give  a  lively  sense  of  all  this. 

These  two  causes,  then  (to  mention  no 
more),  blend  to  bring  about  a  fact  which, 
at  first  blush,  strikes  the  modern  student 
as  curious  and  repellent. 

As  a  result  of  this  dominant  note  of 
winter  in  Old  English  poetry  an  effect  of 
gloom  and  sternness  is  made  on  us,  espe- 
cially if  we  come  to  the  study  full  of  the 
tropic  exuberance  and  troubadour  gayety 
which  run  through  the  literary  product  of 
the  Romance  peoples  ;  or  if  we  are  steeped 
in  the  bland  brightness  of  classic  imagery  ; 
or,  again,  if  we  are  conversant  with  the  rich 
color  and  sensuous  languors  of  some  of  the 
Oriental  literatures.  It  is  somewhat  gray 
business,  this  harping  on  the  one  string, 
this  chronicling  of  only  such  objective 
phenomena  as  are  characteristic  of  the 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  187 

frozen  earth  and  the  ice-beaten  sea.  Yet 
if  sunny  charm  and  color-play  and  soft 
melody  are  wanting,  there  is  great  graphic 
power  and  a  sort  of  wild  music  in  many 
of  the  descriptions  ;  we  get  good  etchings, 
strong  black-and-white  work,  if  not  the 
landscapes  of  Claude  and  Turner;  and 
there  is  stimulation  for  one  who  has  been 
bred  in  softer  pleasures  to  turn  for  the 
nonce  from  scented  rose-gardens  and  lute 
tinklings  to  the  sound  of  storm-swept 
pines,  the  smell  of  briny  waters,  and  the 
sight  of  blood-flecked  battle  shields  shaken 
in  mortal  combat.  "  Pretty  "  may  not  be 
the  adjective  to  apply  to  such  a  poetic 
product,  but  "fine"  and  "strong"  and 
"  virile  "  emphatically  are. 

Examples  follow  of  the  way  in  which 
the  manifold  demonstrations  of  the  ex- 
ternal world  wrought  upon  our  forefathers, 
as  they  feasted,  hunted,  fought,  and  prayed 
in  Saxon  England  more  than  a  thousand 
years  ago,  and  how  this  found  vent  in 
their  song.  In  time,  no  doubt,  we  shall 
have  the  whole  body  of  Old  English  poe- 
try in  a  form  which  will  commend  it  to  pop- 
ular use  and  appreciation  ;  as  yet,  how- 
ever, much  remains  to  be  done,  and  every 


1 88  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

worker  may  contribute  his  mite.  In  turning 
the  passage  into  modern  English,  I  repeat, 
the  Anglo-Saxon  verse-line,  with  its  four 
stresses,  or  accents,  and  its  definite  allitera- 
tion taking  the  place  of  the  later  device  of 
rhyme,  is  reproduced  as  nearly  as  may  be. 
Inevitably,  the  result  is  a  metre  of  so  much 
looser,  less  regular  rhythm  that  an  effect 
of  carelessness  and  comparative  formless- 
ness is  produced  on  the  reader  familiar 
with  more  modern  verse-laws.  The 
rhymeless  dithyrambs  of  Walt  Whitman 
are  at  times  suggested.  But  although  the 
conception  of  metrical  movement  is  freer, 
the  laws  that  govern  it  are  as  exact  and  the 
artistic  limitations  as  rigorously  obeyed  as 
anything  that  more  recent  poetry  can  show. 
It  is  a  popular  error  to  regard  this  early 
verse-product  as  rude  and  deficient  in  art. 
The  long,  striking,  and  beautiful  lyric 
known  as  The  Wanderer,  a  truly  repre- 
sentative poem  in  its  sadness  and  full  of 
the  lament  of  personal  bereavement,  con- 
tains but  two  brief  references  to  nature. 
This  is  an  indication  of  how  laconic  is  the 
early  poet's  use  of  this  embellishment  or 
accessory,  which  in  modern  times  threatens 
to  preempt  the  whole  canvas  at  the  expense 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  189 

of  motifs  and  animated  foregrounds.  Even 
the  most  subjective  of  Old  English  poets 
was  not  satisfied  to  paint  a  picture  for  the 
mere  picture's  sake.  The  Wanderer,  a 
minstrel,  is  imagined  at  sea,  having  lost 
all  his  friends,  including  the  lord  whose 
vassal  he  once  was,  and  is  thinking  over 
his  past  with  sick  memory.  Having 
dreamed  of  better  times,  when  his  lord 
clipped  him  and  kissed  him,  while  the 
bard  in  turn  affectionately  laid  his  hand 
and  head  on  the  kingly  knee,  he  wakes  to 
a  realization  of  his  present  misery  : 

"There  awakeneth  eft  the  woful  man, 

Seeth  before  him  the  fallow  waves, 

The  sea  fowls  a-bathing,  broadening  their  feathers, 

The  rime  and  snow  falling,  mingled  with  hail." 

And  the  poem  says  that  at  the  sight  of 
this  welter  of  storm-smit  waters  instead  of 
the  warm,  feast-glad  interior  of  the  great 
hall  —  the  scald's  heart  is  made  the  heavier. 
It  is  a  veritable  etching,  a  sea  piece  in 
monochrome,  and  very  typical.  It  may 
be  said  here  that  perhaps  no  one  phenom- 
enon of  nature  plays  so  large  a  part  in 
Old  English  literature  as  the  sea,  because 
it  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  life  as  well, 


190  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

and  again  was  a  monster  that  spoke  the 
Saxon's  sense  of  the  change,  the  bigness, 
and  the  mystery  of  human  days.  It  were 
interesting  to  trace  its  steady  influence  in 
the  great  singers  of  the  race.  Think  what 
inspiration,  what  imagery,  it  has  fur- 
nished Shakespeare,  and  a  long  train  of 
successors  down  to  Swinburne  and  Whit- 
man !  The  epithet  "  fallow  "  as  applied 
to  the  waves,  in  the  lines  just  cited,  is  very 
fine,  and  shows  the  true  selective  felicity 
of  poetry.  In  contrast  with  the  gray 
clouds  and  the  snow-filled  air,  the  water 
would  have  taken  on  just  that  dusky  yel- 
low tinge  described  by  the  word.  The 
color  scheme  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  it  may 
be  remarked,  was  far  more  restricted  than 
is  ours  to-day.  Several  of  our  commonest 
colors  appear  not  at  all,  and  light  and 
shade  seem  to  have  made  the  strongest 
impression  upon  them.  This  fact  is  a 
curious  commentary  on  a  passage  in  one 
of  Ruskin's  lectures  on  art,  where  he  re- 
marks that  "  the  way  by  color  is  taken 
by  men  of  cheerful,  natural,  and  entirely 
sane  disposition  in  body  and  mind,  much 
resembling,  even  at  its  strongest,  the  tem- 
per of  well-brought-up  children  ; "  while, 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY 


191 


contrariwise,  "  the  way  by  light  and  shade 
is  taken  by  men  of  the  highest  power  of 
thought  and  most  earnest  desire  for  truth ; 
they  long  for  light,  and  for  knowledge 
of  all  that  light  can  show.  But  seeking 
for  light,  they  perceive  also  darkness ; 
seeking  for  substance  and  truth,  they  find 
vanity.  They  look  for  form  in  the  earth, 
for  dawn  in  the  sky,  and,  seeking  these, 
they  find  formlessness  in  the  earth  and 
night  in  the  sky."  It  hardly  seems  amiss 
to  name  as  exponents  of  the  two  types 
here  adumbrated  the  man  of  Romance 
stock,  sun-loving  and  insouciant,  and  the 
Teuton,  with  his  mood  bred  of  northern 
gloom  and  barrenness. 

The  second  passage  in  The  Wanderer 
occurs  near  the  close  of  the  lyric.  The 
singer  gives  a  gloomy  picture  of  the  earth 
when  the  evil  days  come  of  loss  and 
change,  of  age  and  desolation  : 

"Storms  shake  the  stony  cliffs, 
The  snow  falls  and  binds  the  earth, 
The  winter  wails,  wan  dusk  comes, 
The  night-shade  nips,  from  the  north  sends 
Rough  hail,  for  harm  to  heroes." 

This  is  vivid  description,  and  proves  a 
vigorous  grasp  of  vocabulary  and  a  happy 


1 92  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

power  in  seizing  on  typically  representa- 
tive features  of  a  wintry  landscape.  It 
is  not  cataloguing,  but  the  movement  of 
the  awakened  imagination. 

In  the  mysterious,  ill-defined  lyric 
which  Grein  calls  The  Wife  s  Plaint,  and 
which  seems  to  tell  of  a  woman  exiled 
in  a  sad,  dim  wood,  far  away  from  her 
husband,  there  is  a  short  description  which 
again  has  shadow  and  sorrow  for  its  set- 
ting, the  woman's  ill  stead  being  echoed 
and  transcribed  in  the  phase  of  the  exter- 
nal world  which  is  presented.  She  is  tell- 
ing of  her  banishment  and  the  place  of 
her  abode : 

"  They  bade  me  to  dwell  in  the  bushy  woods, 
Under  the  oak-trees  down  in  the  earth  caves. 
Old  are  the  earth  halls ;  I  am  all-wretched ; 
Dim  are  the  dens,  the  dunes  towering, 
Dense  the  inclosures,  with  brambles  engirt, 
The  dwellings  lack  joy." 

The  reference  to  The  Wife's  Plaint  turns 
the  mind  instinctively  to  the  longer  and 
remarkable  lyric  known  as  The  Ruin; 
only  a  fragment,  but  as  precious  in  its 
way  as  one  of  Sappho's,  and  full  of  Old 
English  feeling  for  the  dark  things  of  life, 
fairly  revelling  in  descriptions  of  physical 


OLD   ENGLISH    POETRY  193 

destruction.  The  subject  is  a  city  in 
ruined  decay  and  neglect,  and  the  poem 
deals  scarcely  at  all  with  nature  directly, 
but  rather  with  the  effects  of  time  upon 
the  work  of  men  as  seen  in  the  fallen  wall 
and  tower  and  rain-pierced  roof.  In  the 
tenth  line,  however,  there  is  a  touch 
worth  noting.  The  artisan  who  built  all 
this  mighty  structure,  says  the  poet,  is 
long  dead,  and  now  his  work  after  him 
is  crumbling  to  naught.  But  it  was  not 
always  so. 

"Often  yon  wall 

(Deer-gray,  red-spotted)  saw  many  a  mighty  one 
Hiding  from  storms." 

The  descriptive  touch  en  parenthese  is  as 
accurate  and  careful  as  it  is  laconic.  It 
implies  real  and  fresh  observation,  and  a 
wish  for  truthful  representation. 

Another  lyric  which  may  well  be  placed 
in  evidence  is  that  called  The  Seafarer ; 
it  contains  several  descriptive  passages 
which  make  it  interesting  for  our  partic- 
ular study.  It  pictures  a  lonely  seafarer 
afloat  on  the  waters,  with  the  usual  un- 
pleasant concomitants  of  bad  weather  and 
bleak  season : 


i94  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"I  may  of  mine  own  might  a  sooth-song  sing, 

Say  of  my  journeys  how  I  through  toilful  days 

Often  endured  arduous  times, 

Had  to  abide  breast  care  full  bitter, 

Knew  on  the  ship  many  a  sad  berth, 

Fierce  welter  of  waves,   where  oft   they   beat  upon 

me 

In  my  narrow  night-watch  at  the  boat's  bow, 
When  it   hurtled  on  the    cliffs,  conquered  by    the 

cold; 

Then  were  my  feet  by  the  frost  bitten, 
In  fetters  bleak.    ...    No  man  may  know  it, 
Who  on  the  fair,  firm  land  happily  liveth, 
How  I,  sore-sorry  one,  upon  the  ice-cold  sea 
Winter  long  dwelt  midst  evils  of  exile, 
Lorn  of  all  joys,  robbed  of  my  kinsmen, 
Behung  with  icicles.      Hail  blew  in  showers ; 
There  heard  I  naught  but  the  streaming  sea, 
The  ice-cold  wave  ;  whilom  the  swan's  song 
Had  I  to  pleasure  me,  cry  of  the  water-hen, 
And,  for  men's  laughter,  the  sea-beast's  loud  voice, 
The  singing  of  gulls  instead  of  mead-drink. 
Storms  beat  the  stony  cliffs,  while  the  sea-swallow, 
Icy-feathered,  answered ;  full  oft  the  eagle, 
Moist-feathered,  shrieked. ' ' 

Here  we  have  a  full-length  portrait  of 
misery,  with  much  vividness  and  partic- 
ularity in  putting  before  us  the  monody 
of  sea  and  sky  and  fate.  A  little  farther 
on,  the  scald  seems  to  imagine  himself  on 
land  in  the  winter,  and  with  the  incon- 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  195 

sistency  of  human  nature,  he  gets  up  a 
longing  for  the  very  terrors  he  has  ex- 
pended so  much  energy  in  bemoaning : 

"The  night-shades   thicken,  it  snows  from  the  north, 
Rime  binds  the  land,  hail  falls  on  the  earth, 
Coldest  of  corn.      Wherefore  surge  now 
The  thoughts  of  my  heart,  that  I  the  high  streams, 
The  play  of  the  salt  waves,  again  might  essay." 

Truth  to  tell,  the  Anglo-Saxons  minded 
stiff  weather  on  the  water  far  less  than 
we  their  degenerate  descendants.  They 
knew  the  sea  in  all  her  moods ;  they 
lived  and  fought  upon  her,  and  their  in- 
trustment  of  the  dead  body  to  her  at  the 
last,  the  death-boat  pushing  out  into  the 
open  brine  to  float  at  will  of  wind  and 
wave,  is  a  touching  proof  of  the  magic  and 
magnetism  she  exercised  upon  their  mind. 

Another  passage  in  the  poem  must  be 
given.  This  time  it  is  a  brief  description 
of  spring,  and  a  pleasing  one : 

"  The  woods  take  on  blossoms,  the  burgs  grow  fair, 
The  plains  are  a-glitter,  the  world  waxes  gay." 

But  now  comes  the  typically  Old  English 
melancholy,  like  a  death's-head  at  the 
feast  : 


196  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"  But  all  monisheth  the  heedful  of  death, 
To  fare  on  a  journey,  he  who  meditateth 
Over  the  flood-ways  far  hence  to  go. 
So  broods  the  cuckoo  with  mournful  words, 
So  sings  the  summer's  ward,  foretelling  sorrow, 
Bitter  in  soul." 

It  is  suggestive,  in  the  face  of  this 
treatment  of  the  cuckoo  as  a  harbinger  of 
woe,  to  compare  therewith  Wordsworth's 
exquisite  poem  to  this  bird  : 

"  O  blithe  new-comer  !  I  have  heard, 
I  hear  thee  and  rejoice. 
O  cuckoo  !  shall  I  call  thee  Bird, 
Or  but  a  wandering  Voice  ?  " 

And  then  the  closing  stanza : 

"  O  blessed  Bird  !  the  earth  we  pace 
Again  appears  to  be 
An  unsubstantial,  faery  place, 
That  is  fit  home  for  thee." 

Here  is  spiritualized  cheerfulness  instead 
of  sorry  forecast,  bearing  out  my  assertion 
of  the  more  hopeful  interpretation  of 
nature  under  the  reign  of  Christ. 

Mention  must  be  made  of  the  two  fine 
ballads,  The  Battle  of  Brunanburh  and 
The  Battle  of  Maldon.  The  former,  em- 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  197 

bedded  like  a  glowing  ruby  in  the  dull 
gray  prose  of  the  Saxon  Chronicles  for 
the  year  937,  contains  a  couple  of  bits  of 
nature  description,  and  one  of  them  may 
be  given.  The  theme  of  the  ballad  is 
the  victory  won  over  the  Scots  and  North- 
men by  King  Athelstan  and  Eadmund 
the  Etheling,  his  brother ;  and  the  chosen 
extract  is  characteristically  sombre  and 
Old  English.  It  deals  with  beast-kind, 
with  the  three  creatures,  feathered  or  four- 
footed,  who  are  inevitable  grim  concomi- 
tants of  the  battle-field  in  the  unsavory 
post-bellum  capacity  of  scavengers.  The 
mention  of  birds  and  beasts  like  these, 
instead  of  the  innocent  and  lovesome 
song-makers  who  warble  and  chirp  in 
modern  verse,  is  another  indication  of  the 
gloomy  mood  of  our  heathen  forefathers. 
The  victorious  king  and  the  Etheling, 
says  the  poet,  sought  their  own  homes  in 
Wessex,  turning  their  backs  on  the  bloody 
field  with  its  harvest  of  dead  bodies. 

"Left  they  behind  them,  to  rend  the  corpses, 
The  sallow-coated  one,  the  swart  raven, 
The  horny-nibbed  and  the  gray-coated 
Eagle  white-breasted,  carrion  to  enjoy ; 
The  greedy  war  hawk,  and  that  gray  beast 
The  wolf  in  the  wood." 


198  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

That  evil  triumvirate,  the  raven,  the  hawk, 
and  the  wolf,  fairly  haunt  Old  English 
poetry  ;  and  this  is  largely  explained  by 
the  predominance  of  the  theme  of  war's 
havoc,  which  naturally  brings  the  creatures 
of  prey  in  its  train.  They  give  occasion 
for  some  of  the  finest  passages  in  this 
drastic  vein,  and,  however  unpleasant  to 
modern  aesthetics,  it  were  foolish  not  to 
feel  how  truthful  and  keenly  observant 
and  vigorously  sketched  are  such  lines  as 
these  just  quoted. 

The  Battle  of  Maldon,  although  a  much 
longer  poem,  contains  hardly  a  trace 
of  nature-painting,  being  sternly  epic. 
Brunanburh  is  a  more  triumphant  song 
than  Chevy  Chace ;  Maldon,  contrariwise, 
chronicles  the  dire  defeat  of  the  brave 
Alderman  Bryhtnoth,  in  Essex,  in  the  year 
991,  by  the  Vikings.  The  single  example, 
again,  of  grim  suggestion,  is  a  brief  two- 
line  stroke.  The  fight  is  fierce;  the 
doomed  ones  begin  to  fall,  and  the  scav- 
engers with  unseemly  haste  to  gather: 

"  Then  was  a  cry  uplift,  the  ravens  flew  about, 
The  eagles,  flesh-eager." 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  199 

It  remains  to  speak  of  the  literary  mon- 
ument which  in  importance,  as  well  as  in 
length,  overtops  all  else  in  poetry  that 
Old  English  days  have  bequeathed  to  us  : 
I  mean  the  Beowulf.  The  reader  is  re- 
minded that  the  theme  of  Beowulf  is  the 
deeds  and  days  of  the  great  hero  by  that 
name  ;  who  visits  the  Danish  King  Hroth- 
gar ;  fights,  and  eventually  kills,  the  fierce 
dragon  who  is  depopulating  the  great  hall 
of  the  latter ;  returns  to  his  native  land  of 
Gotland,  in  Sweden,  and  rules  there  pros- 
perously for  fifty  winters  as  king,  until  he 
dies,  heavy  with  years  and  honors,  in  a 
conflict  with  another  dragon,  and  is  bur- 
ied with  due  pomp  by  the  seashore,  and 
mourned  as  a  good  lord,  —  a  lofty  death- 
barrow  being  erected  in  his  honor,  with  a 
bright  beacon  thereon,  that  the  distant 
shipfarer  may  be  cheered.  So  far  as  the 
treatment  of  nature  is  concerned,  this  poem 
is  grim  and  gloomy  in  the  main.  We 
hear  much  of  dusk,  stony  cliffs,  of  weird 
waterways  (the  supernatural  comes  much 
into  play  in  the  poem),  of  wintry  moors 
and  bleak  earth-holes,  but  next  to  noth- 
ing of  the  shine  and  the  joyance  of  life,  ei- 
ther objective  or  subjective.  What  joyance 


200  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

there  is  comes  of  battle,  or  of  beer-drink- 
ing about  the  hearth-fire  at  night.  So  that 
the  greatest  Old  English  poetical  produc- 
tion bears  out  the  reiterated  statement  that 
it  is  the  night  side  of  nature  which  is  pre- 
sented in  the  earliest  literature.  The  first 
passage  cited  brings  up  a  scene  in  the  great 
hall  of  King  Hrothgar,  who  is  entertaining 
Beowulf,  just  arrived  from  his  sea  journey 
with  his  attendant  troop.  Ale  and  mead 
have  been  circulated,  and  one  of  Hroth- 

fir's  thanes,  who  is  well  drunken,  twits 
eowulf  with  being  outdone  in  a  famous 
swimming  match  in  the  ocean  by  one 
Breca.  Beowulf  indignantly  denies  this 
insinuation,  and  straightway  tells  the  true 
tale  of  how  he  beat  Breca.  Never  is  the 
Old  English  hero  backward  in  coming 
forward  about  his  own  deeds ;  modesty,  as 
we  reckon  it,  was  not  one  of  his  promi- 
nent traits.  Siegfried  in  Wagner's  operas, 
another  Germanic  hero,  furnishes  a  fur- 
ther example.  In  the  course  of  Beowulf's 
story  we  get  this  description  of  the  winter 
sea.  It  is  left  to  the  hearer  to  imagine 
the  icy-cold  of  the  water  and  its  effects  on 
the  hardy  swimmers : 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  201 

"  Then  were  we  twain  there  on  the  sea 
Space  of  five  nights,  till  the  floods  severed  us, 
The  welling  waves.      Coldest  of  weathers, 
Shadowy  night,  and  the  north  wind 
Battelous  shocked  on  us  ;  wild  were  the  waters, 
And  were  the  mere-fishes  stirred  up  in  mind." 

By  mere-fishes  here  are  meant  whales, 
and  the  powerful  statement  is  therefore 
made  that  the  upheaval  of  the  sea  was 
such  as  to  disturb  even  leviathan.  It  will 
be  seen  that,  on  the  whole,  this  swimming 
match  is  accompanied  by  rather  more  seri- 
ous incidents  and  conducted  under  more 
stringent  conditions  than  the  average  wager 
of  its  kind.  Farther  on  in  the  poem,  after 
Beowulf  has  successfully  met  the  monster 
Grendel,  and  driven  him,  howling  with 
rage  at  the  loss  of  an  arm,  back  to  his 
native  fen,  his  mother,  the  she-dragon, 
comes  by  night  to  avenge  her  son,  and 
seizes  one  of  Hrothgar's  henchmen,  bear- 
ing him  off  to  feed  on  his  body.  In  the 
morning  the  king  is  made  aware  of  this 
occurrence,  and  on  meeting  Beowulf  tells 
him  of  it,  bewailing  his  loss.  He  enters 
into  a  detailed  description  of  Grendel  and 
his  dam,  his  habitat,  how  dread  the  place 
is ;  and  calls  on  Beowulf  for  help  in  his 


202  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

grievance  and  peril.  During  his  mono- 
logue comes  this  picture  or  the  lair  of 
these  uncanny  pests : 

"  They  guard  a  weird  land, 
Holes  for  the  wolves  and  windy  crags, 
The  fearful  far  ways  where  the  mountain  flood 
Under  the  misty  nesses  netherward  falls, 
The  flood  'neath  the  earth.    'Tis  not  far  hence  ward 
In  measure  of  miles  that  the  mere  standeth  ; 
Thereover  hang  the  clamorous  holts, 
The  woods  rooted  firm,  o'erwatching  the  water." 

The  deep-mouthed,  resonant  tone-color 
of  the  vernacular  gives  voice  well  to  the 
idea  of  the  eerie  aloofness  and  mystery  of 
the  place.  One  thinks,  in  reading  such  a 
description,  of  the  palette  of  a  Rembrandt 
or  the  word  power  of  a  Dante.  Only  a 
few  lines  farther  on  the  picture  receives  a 
few  additional  details : 

"  That  is  no  happy  spot, 

Thence  the  waves'  mingle  upward  mounts  ever 
Wan  to  the  welkin,  when  the  wind  rouseth 
Storms  full  loath  ;  till  the  air  darkens, 
The  heaven  weeps." 

In  its  elements  of  mournful  mystery, 
its  touch  of  magic,  and  •  its  imaginative 
grouping  of  the  terrors  incident  to  the 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  203 

stern  aspect  of  sea  and  land  in  the  north, 
such  writing  may  be  marked  as  finely  rep- 
resentative not  only  of  Old  English,  but 
of  early  Germanic  literature,  which  still 
retained  Aryan  features  of  pre-Christian 
cultus  and  folk-lore. 

The  examples  given  of  Beowulf  fairly 
represent  the  prevailing  manner  and  tone 
of  the  epic  in  treating  nature  ;  and,  as  will 
have  been  seen  from  the  other  citations 
made,  it  is  also  typical  of  the  general  body 
of  verse,  whether  epic  or  lyric,  of  this  first 
period.  I  remark  here  in  passing  that 
there  is  not  in  the  whole  poem  a  reference 
to  the  moon,  that  melancholy  orb  of  night, 
—  when,  a  priori,  we  might  well  expect  a 
poet  so  glum-minded  to  take  advantage 
of  it  as  good  material  to  hand.  But  the 
sadness  of  the  Germanic  bard  has  not  a 
touch  of  sentimentalizing  about  it ;  it  is 
not  moon-struck  moaning,  but  the  recog- 
nition of  harsh  fate  by  heroes  and  warriors. 

The  transition  from  the  poetry  of  the 
heroic  period  to  the  monkish  writings  of 
such  men  as  Caedmon  and  Cynewulf  is 
hardly  an  abrupt  one.  The  earlier  vigor, 
raciness,  and  na'i'uete  are  not  wholly  lost 
when  we  come  to  the  later  verse-making ; 


204 


LITERARY    LIKINGS 


yet  certain  well-defined  characteristics  serve 
to  mark  off  the  two  products,  and  the 
interpretation  of  nature  in  each  case  is 
an  earmark  of  the  change.  The  most 
primitive  poetry  is  sung  by  unknown 
scalds,  working  over  and  retouching  the 
original  from  generation  to  generation ; 
modern  criticism  finds  this  to  be  true  of 
Beowulf  as  it  does  of  Homer.  But  in  the 
transitional  time  we  get  a  definite  name 
attached  to  the  verse  product,  as  the 
poet-cowherd  Caedmon,  or  Cynewulf,  the 
mysterious  scald  of  Northumbria.  The 
subject-matter,  too,  changes  ;  Caedmon 
making  metrical  paraphrases  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  Cynewulf  shaping  into 
narrative  poems  of  epic  dignity  and  scope 
the  mediaeval  Christian  legends.  Where 
before  was  the  Germanic  myth  unadulter- 
ated, we  meet  with  themes  borrowed  from 
the  Latin  ;  and  the  older  heathen  fatalism, 
with  its  attendant  mood  of  pessimism  and 
affiliation  with  the  darker  things  of  the 
external  world,  makes  way  for  the  milder 
horoscope  of  the  new  religion,  with  a 
cheerier  reflection  of  nature.  The  signs 
at  first  are  somewhat  chary,  since  the  earl 
who  invokes  Thor  cannot  be  smoothed 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  205 

over  into  the  meek-hearted  Christ-lover  in 
a  trice,  —  and  indeed  the  treatment  of 
religious  things  by  these  early  poets  often 
reminds  one  of  the  fabled  wolf  in  sheep's 
clothing ;  yet  for  this  very  reason  a  racy 
originality  is  imparted  to  the  handling  of 
themes  traditionally  dull  and  prosy,  and 
the  verse  of  religious  motives  has  a  literary 
value. 

The  names  of  Caedmon  and  Cynewulf, 
the  first  Christian  poets  of  the  English 
tongue,  are  to  be  associated  with  eccle- 
siastic culture,  and  are  of  moment  in  the 
evolution  of  the  native  poetry.  The  true 
successors  of  the  harpers  whose  names 
and  titles  are  lost  in  the  archaic  twilight 
of  time,  they  were  English  above  all  else, 
poets  before  they  were  scholars.  If  their 
subject-matter  be  largely  religious,  and  if 
the  didactic  note  be  struck  again  and 
again,  passage  after  passage  can  be  quoted 
which  rivals  the  heathen  song  in  its  epic 
lilt  and  predilection  for  the  martial  and 
heroic.  The  verse  of  such  singers  may 
not  be  overlooked  by  the  critic  in  his  per- 
petual still-hunt  for  aesthetic  pleasure. 

Caedmon  has  been  called  the  Saxon 
Milton.  The  appellation  is  not  inapt; 


206  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

the  Puritan  poet's  possible  obligation  to 
his  predecessor  and  the  similarity  of  their 
treatment  making  the  nexus  all  the  more 
real ;  but  in  regard  of  his  origin  and  idio- 
syncrasy Caedmon  is  rather  the  prototype 
of  a  modern  people-poet  like  Burns :  the 
one  summoned  from  the  oxstall,  the  other 
from  the  plough,  to  tell  of  the  things  of 
the  spirit ;  both  humble  in  birth  and  occu- 
pation, and  with  distinct  folk-traits  and 
sympathies.  The  Whitby  poet  sings  in 
strong,  sweet  speech  of  the  Israelitish 
quest  of  the  Promised  Land,  or  of  such 
stirring  happenings  as  those  which  centre 
around  Judith  as  protagonist.  And 
throughout  his  Bible-inspired  epics  it  is 
curious  to  see  the  moody  earnestness  of 
the  Saxon  merged  in  the  solemn,  mystic- 
dreamy,  or  jubilant  joy  of  the  neophyte; 
this  blend  of  character  and  influence 
coloring  the  touches  of  nature  as  it  does 
other  phases  of  the  work.  His  verses  are 
paraphrase  in  the  broadest,  freest  sense. 
Whenso  the  singer  wills,  he  expands, 
interpolates,  introduces  so  much  of  local 
color  that  the  composition  comes  to  have 
independent  and  creative  worth. 

In  Caedmon's  Genesis,  where  God  com- 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  207 

forts  Abram  by  telling  him  that  his  seed 
shall  be  like  the  stars  in  heaven  for  num- 
ber, the  bard  amplifies  the  statement  in 
this  manner: 

"  Behold  the  heavens  !   Reckon  their  hosts, 
The  stars  in  Ether,  which  now  in  stately  wise 
Their  lovesome  beauty  scatter  afar, 
Over  the  broad  sea  brightly  ashine." 

Here  a  distinct,  new  note  is  struck :  the 
heavenly  lights  are  considered  as  ema- 
nations from  God,  the  Source  of  light. 
When  we  hear  in  Beowulf  of  "  God's 
beautiful  beacon,"  Christian  interpolation 
is  at  once  suggested.  We  saw  something 
of  the  typical  treatment  of  animals  in  the 
epic :  contrast  therewith  this  tender  de- 
scription of  the  dove  sent  forth  to  find  a 
resting-place  and  bring  tidings  of  terra 
firma  to  the  sea-weary  folk.  The  Testa- 
ment account  is  again  laconic ;  the  ampli- 
fication such  as  to  imply  artistic  apprecia- 
tion of  opportunity : 

"  Widely  she  flew, 
Until  a  gladsome  rest  and  a  fair  place 
Haply  she  found,  and  set  her  foot  upon 
The  gentle  tree.      Blithe-mooded,  she 
Joyed  that,  sore-weary,  she  now  might  settle 


zo8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

On  the  branch  bosky,  on  its  bright  mast. 
Preening  her  feathers,  forth  she  went  flying 
With  a  sweet  gift,  hastened  to  give 
Straight  in  their  hands  a  twig  of  olive, 
A  blade  of  grass." 

We  get  here  the  initiative  of  the  modern 
treatment.  And  one  notices  this  in  an 
Old  English  poet  for  the  reason  that  both 
Caedmon  and  Cynewulf  can  on  occasion 
paint  in  the  sober  pigments  of  the  elder 
bards.  The  following,  for  example,  from 
the  Exodus,  reminds  the  student  forcibly 
of  the  passage  already  given  from  the 
ballad  of  Erunanburh,  and  is  every  whit 
as  savage  and  heathen ;  it  masses  the 
details  of  a  fight  between  Moses  leading 
the  Israelites  and  the  hosts  of  Pharaoh : 

"In  the  further  sky  shrieked  the  battle-fowls 

Greedy  of  fight :  the  yellow  raven, 

She  dewy -feathered,  over  the  slain-in-war, 

Wan  Walkyrie.      Wolves  were  a-howling 

A  hateful  even-song,  weening  on  food, 

Pitiless  beasts,  full  stark  in  murder, 

In  the  rear  heralding  a  meal  of  doomed  men, 

Shrieked  these  march-warders  in  the  mid  nights." 

Turning  to  the  fragmentary  Judith,  the 
irrepressible  relish  for  a  sanguinary  en- 
counter breaks  out,  and  there  is  very  little 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY 


209 


of  the  cloistral  student  felt  in  the  breath- 
less lines  which  tell  how  the  Hebrew 
woman  slew  Holofernes.  One  harks  back 
to  Brunanburhy  to  Beowulf,  to  such  other 
Germanic  monuments  as  the  Hildebrand, 
or  to  some  of  the  Eddie  poems,  in  reading 
it.  Such  literature  suggests  how  Shake- 
speare, child  of  his  age  for  all  his  genius, 
could  heap  up  the  murders  in  his  plays, 
and  take  so  kindly  to  the  belligerent  and 
the  bloody.  The  Elizabethans  were  three 
hundred  years  nearer  the  Old  English  than 
ourselves,  and  the  first  epics  of  our  race 
are  battle-pieces,  the  first  motif  is  that  of 
war.  But  despite  the  redness  of  'Judith 
as  a  whole,  it  has  a  peaceful  close,  the 
final  passage  celebrating  nature  as  created 
joyously  by  the  Maker  of  men;  and  it 
could  not  have  been  written  until  after 
Augustine  in  the  south  and  the  Irish  in 
the  north  had  spoken  of  Christ  to  Eng- 
lish folk: 

"Be  to  the  lief  Lord 

Glory  forever,  He  who  shaped  wind  and  lift, 
The  heavens,  the  vast  earthways,  eke  the  wild  seas 
And  the  sun's  joys,  because  of  His  mercy." 

The  accent  of  the  heathen  invocation  in 
such  a  place  would  be  very  different. 


zio  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Shelley  is  hinted  and  foreshadowed  in  more 
than  one  nature  apostrophe  of  these  early 
Christian  poets  —  Shelley  minus  his  sub- 
jectivity. The  same  cosmic  sweep  of  the 
imagination  is  noticeable. 

The  singer's  picture  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden  in  all  its  primal  and  virgin  loveliness 
shows  again  an  appreciation  of  new  subject- 
matter  : 

"  The  plain  of  Paradise 
Stood  good  and  gracious,  filled  full  with  gifts, 
With  fruits  eternal.     Lovely  it  glittered, 
That  land  so  mild,  with  waters  flowing, 
With  bubbling  springs.      Never  had  clouds  as  yet 
Over  the  roomy  ways  carried  the  rains 
Wan  with  the  winds ;  but  decked  out  with  blossoms 
The  earth  stretched  away." 

In  reading  this  verse,  one  is  often  re- 
minded of  the  solecisms,  anachronisms, 
and  amusing  artlessnesses  of  a  later  liter- 
ary product  which  equals  the  younger  in 
virility,  the  Elizabethan  drama.  In  the 
strong,  felicitous,  and  frequent  use  of  the 
metaphor,  also,  Shakespeare  and  his  fellows 
are  leal  descendants  of  the  Old  English, 
while  more  modern  poetry  has  developed 
at  the  expense  of  the  metaphor  that  ex- 
panded and  weakened  form  of  it  known 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  211 

as  the  simile.  Stopford  Brooke  has 
pointed  out  that  with  a  poet  like  Caedmon, 
a  Whitby  man  who  looked  forth  upon  the 
stormy  waters  of  the  Northumbrian  coast 
while  weaving  his  song,  it  was  natural  he 
should  tell  of  the  sea  with  imaginative 
vigor  and  felicity,  as  when  he  sang  of 
Noah  and  the  flood.  Mostly,  as  earlieV, 
it  is  the  serious  and  sombre  aspects  which 
are  depicted ;  but  it  is  worth  noting  that 
when  we  come  to  Cynewulf  such  new 
compounds  as  "  sea-bright "  and  "  sea- 
calm  "  are  made  to  portray  the  more  amia- 
ble side  of  this  moody  monster. 

Caedmon's  subjects  are  essentially  epic 
and  grandiosely  religious ;  in  the  case  of 
Cynewulf  we  enter  into  the  atmosphere 
of  Middle-Age  legend  and  worship,  the 
cycle  of  hagiography,  with  an  occasional 
excursus  in  the  more  primitive  field,  as  in 
the  Riddles.  But  by  no  means  do  the 
Old  English  qualities  go  by  the  board. 
If  such  themes  as  those  of  the  Andreas 
and  the  Juliana  suggest  the  studious  clois- 
ter, the  speech  of  the  bard  smacks  of  the 
soil,  and  there  is  enough  of  the  epic  and 
the  folk-touch  to  prevent  them  from  be- 
coming scholastic  and  unattractive.  Ten 


212  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Brinck's  remark  that  "  the  introduction  of 
Christianity  was  doubtless  one  of  the 
causes  that  destroyed  the  productive 
power  of  epic  poetry,"  while  true  in  the 
abstract,  must  not  be  applied  with  strict- 
ness to  Caedmon  and  Cynewulf;  they 
were  near  enough  the  heroic  day  still  to 
breathe  its  air.  In  the  latter's  Christ,  a 
loosely  constructed  work  of  a  choral-epic 
nature,  which  celebrates  the  Nativity, 
Ascension,  and  Day  of  Judgment,  a  single 
line  gives  an  example  of  the  imaginative 
touch  in  conceiving  nature  as  a  vassal,  who 
contributes  her  beauty  to  the  glory  of 
heaven.  The  seraphim  who  sing  about  the 
throne  are  described,  and  the  poet  chants : 

"  Forever  and  ever,  adorned  with  the  sky, 
They  worship  the  Wielder  ;  " 

the  Wielder  being  God,  who  wields  power 
over  all.  The  italicized  clause  embodies 
a  conception  which  has  a  largeness  re- 
minding one  of  the  work  of  a  Michael 
Angelo.  One  thinks  instinctively  of 
Milton's  scene : 

"  Where  the  bright  seraphim  in  burning  row 
Their  loud  uplifted  angel  trumpets  blow, 
And  the  cherubic  host  in  thousand  quires 
Touch  their  immortal  harps  of  golden  wires." 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  213 

This  brief  passage  from  the  Christ  is 
nobly  epic  and  large-moving : 

"  Our  food  He  gives  us  and  joy  of  goods, 
Weal  o'er  the  wide  ways  and  weather  soft 
Under  the  skyey  roof.      The  sun  and  moon, 
Best-born  of  stars,  shine  they  for  all  of  us, 
Candles  of  heaven  for  heroes  on  earth." 

There  is  a  sound  of  pantheism  in  this, 
and  again  comes  the  naive  stroke  in  the 
epithet  "heroes"  where  "sinners"  would 
be  the  conventional  later  word.  It  took 
centuries  of  masses  and  missals  to  make 
the  old  Englishman  admire  the  saint 
type  more  than  the  martial  leader.  Cyne- 
wulf's  Andreas  (now  by  the  latest  theory 
awarded  to  a  follower  rather  than  to 
himself)  is  a  narrative  poem  which  de- 
scribes the  delivery  of  Matthew  from  a 
Mermedonian  prison  by  Andrew,  who 
dwells  in  Achaia,  and  who  therefore  has 
to  make  a  sea  journey  in  faring  on  his 
quest  of  rescue.  It  is  full  of  sea  pictures, 
and  the  color  is  that  of  the  northeast 
coast  of  England,  the  singer's  presumable 
home.  In  the  passage  following,  the  saint 
has  been  borne  by  angels  to  land,  and  left 
asleep  on  a  highway  near  the  Mermedo- 
nian city : 


214  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"Then  flew  the  angels,  forth  again  faring, 

Glad  on  the  up-way  their  Home  to  seek, 

Leaving  the  holy  one  there  on  the  highroad, 

Sleeping  right  peacefully  under  the  heaven's  heed, 

Nigh  to  his  foemen,  all  the  night  through. 

Till  that  the  Prince  suffered  day's  candle 

Sheerly  to  shine  :  the  shades  slunk  away 

Wan  'neath  the  welkin  ;  then  came  the  weather's  torch, 

The  brilliant  heaven-light  o'er  the  homes  beaming." 

Here  the  thought  is  of  light  driving  out 
darkness ;  it  would  have  been  more  in  the 
way  of  the  heathen  poet  to  give  us  the 
day  swallowed  up  in  the  huge  black  maw 
of  night.  In  the  second  line  translated  is 
an  example  of  the  constant  perplexity  of 
one  who  essays  to  turn  Old  English  into 
more  modern  speech.  I  have  retained 
the  word  "  up-way "  (like  the  German 
Aufgang)  as  it  stands  in  the  original,  for  it 
is  certainly  an  admirably  descriptive  sub- 
stantive for  the  airy  path  followed  by  the 
angelic  messengers  in  flying  back  to 
heaven.  One  runs  the  danger  of  making 
either  a  bizarre  effect  or  an  obscure  read- 
ing in  such  a  case,  the  result  being  a  fre- 
quent abandonment  of  the  fine,  strong, 
fresh  Old  English  diction. 

But  not  always  did  Cynewulf  elect  re- 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  215 

ligious  subjects ;  the  series  of  remarkable 
Riddles,  which  rank  among  his  best  pro- 
ductions, are  secular  in  subject,  heathen  in 
spirit,  and  full  of  the  flavor  of  folk-lore, 
myth,  and  northern  melancholy.  Yet 
there  is  a  divergence  from  the  oldest  epic 
type :  the  writer  of  these  puzzle-poems 
has,  after  all,  felt  the  amelioration  of  the 
new  religion,  and  its  influence  may  be 
traced  in  the  lyrico-subjective  position  of 
the  bard  toward  nature.  Commingling 
with  the  feeling  for  the  savagery  of  beast- 
kind  is  a  certain  spiritual  good-fellowship 
which  foretokens  Coleridge,  Byron,  and 
Wordsworth.  Beside  the  dark,  battle- 
ravenous  raven  we  see  the  bright,  high- 
bred falcon  associated  with  the  aristocratic 
chase  and  the  stately  king-hall.  In  Riddle 
Eight  the  swan  is  thus  done  in  rapid 
crayon,  for  the  reader's  guessing: 

"  Silent  my  feather-robe  when  earth  I  tread, 
Fly  o'er  the  villages,  venture  the  sea  ; 
Whilom,  this  coat  of  mine  and  the  lift  lofty 
Heave  me  on  high  over  the  heroes'  bight, 
And  the  wide  welkin's  strength  beareth  me  up 
Over  the  folk  ;  my  winged  adornments 
Go  whirring  and  humming,  keen  is  their  song 
When,  freed  of  fetters,  straightway  I  am 
A  spirit  that  fareth  o'er  flood  and  field." 


2i6  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Riddle  Fifty-eight  limns  a  somewhat 
mysterious  brown  bird,  the  identification 
of  which  may  perhaps  be  left  most  safely 
to  Mr.  Burroughs.  Luckily,  uncertainty 
as  to  name  does  not  interfere  with  enjoy- 
ment of  the  brief,  beautiful  description : 

"The  lift  upbeareth  the  little  wights 

Over  the  high  hills  :  very  black  be  they, 

Swart,  sallow-coated.      Strong  in  their  song, 

Flockwise  they  fare,  loud  in  their  crying 

Flit  through  the  woody  nesses,  or,  whiles,  the  stately  halls 

Of  mortal  men.     Their  own  names  they  sound." 

The  hint  in  the  final  line  suggests  whip- 
poor-will,  Bob  White,  and  other  songsters, 
but  the  analogy  is  not  carried  out.  In 
Old  English  verse  nothing  of  the  lyric  or 
idyllic  sort  is  more  imaginative  than  the 
subjoined  sketch  of  the  nightingale,  in  the 
ninth  Riddle ;  it  has  the  interpretative 
quality  removing  it  far  from  mere  detail 
work: 

"  Many  a  tongue  I  speak  by  mine  own  mouth, 
In  descants  sing,  pour  out  my  lofty  notes, 
Chanting  so  loud,  hold  fast  my  melody, 
Stay  not  my  word,  old  even-singer, 
But  bring  to  earls  bliss  in  their  towers, 
When  for  the  dwellers  there  passioned  I  sing  ; 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  217 

Hushed  in  the  houses  sit  they  and  hark. 

How  am  I  hight  now,  who  with  such  scenic  tunes 

Zealously  strive,  calling  to  hero-men 

Many  a  welcome  with  my  sweet  voice  ? ' ' 

We  must  make  some  requisition  upon  a 
long  and  remarkable  passage  from  Cyne- 
wulf's  allegorical  poem,  The  Phoenix^  a 
piece  based  upon  the  Latin,  but  much 
increased  in  volume  and  thoroughly  Old 
English.  The  Phoenix  is  also  an  inter- 
esting example  of  the  allegoric  use  of 
nature  (here  exemplified  in  the  strange 
bird  which  names  the  composition)  in 
the  service  of  religious  laudation.  The 
bard  uses  a  free  hand  in  limning  the 
praises  of  Paradise ;  and,  on  the  whole, 
the  finest  work  of  Cynewulf,  and  perhaps 
of  Christian  poetry,  in  the  broad  style,  is 
embodied  in  the  glowing  and  vibrant 
words  and  cadences.  Notice  the  Old 
English  conception  of  the  Home  of  the 
Blessed  as  an  island.  The  sense  of  this 
mid-earth  as  water-girdled,  which  is 
common  to  the  several  Germanic  litera- 
tures, is  blended  in  this  case  with  that 
thought  of  England's  ocean-fretted  isle 
which  made  the  greatest  poet  of  the  Ian- 


2i 8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

guage  see  it  imaginatively  as  a  "  precious 
stone  set  in  the  silver  sea." 

"  Yon  plain  was  shining,  blessed  with  all  sweets, 
With  fairest  fragrance  the  earth  may  yield ; 
The  isle  stands  alone,  its  Artist  was  noble, 
Proud,  rich  in  might,  who  stablished  the  mould. 
Oft  to  the  Blessed  Ones  is  bliss  of  songs 
Borne,  and  the  doors  of  heaven  opened  are. 
That  is  a  winsome  wold,  green  are  the  woods, 
Roomy  'neath  skies.      Neither  the  rain  nor  snow, 
Nor  breath  of  frost,  nor  blast  of  fire, 
Not  the  hail's  drumming  nor  the  rime's  coming, 
Neither  the  sun's  heat  nor  bitter  cold, 
Neither  the  weather  warm  nor  wintry  storm, 
May  harm  the  wights ;  but  the  wold  lasteth 
Happy  and  hale  ;  'tis  a  right  noble  land 
Woxen  with  blooms.      Nor  fells  nor  mountains 
Steeply  arise  there  ;  nor  do  the  stony  cliffs 
Beetle  on  high,  as  here  midst  mortals. 

Still  is  that  victor-wold,  the  sun-groves  glitter, 
The  blissful  holt.      Growths  do  not  wane, 
The  blades  so  bright ;  but  the  trees  ever 
Stand  greenly  forth,  as  God  has  bidden, 
The  woods  alike  in  winter  and  summer 
Are  hung  with  fruitings;  never  may  wither 
A  leaf  in  the  lift." 

The  faults  of  such  descriptive  writing 
are  monotony,  the  repetition  of  stock 
phrases,  the  working  over  of  the  same 


OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  219 

thought.  Nevertheless,  it  has  a  noble 
manner,  and  a  charm  of  diction  that 
makes  for  true  poetry. 

I  hope  the  survey  has  now  been  wide 
enough  to  make  the  reader  willing  to 
believe  that  the  treatment  of  nature  in 
Old  English  poetry,  in  this  its  first  mani- 
festation, is  something  distinct,  original, 
and  of  high  poetic  value.  It  affords  a 
welcome  insight  into  the  mind  and  the 
imagination  of  our  Saxon  predecessors, 
and  both  by  what  it  says  and  leaves 
unsaid  yields  interesting  testimony  with 
regard  to  their  attitude  toward  the  exter- 
nal world  of  terror,  power,  and  beauty. 
That  attitude  was  vastly  different  from 
our  own,  more  limited  in  perception,  less 
enlightened,  gloomier  in  mood,  register- 
ing a  state  of  half-development.  But  it 
had  fine  and  characteristic  points  about 
it :  the  Old  English  imaginative  vigor 
and  grip,  though  largely  sardonic;  the 
creative  impulse,  though  vibrant  to  coarser 
passions  and  childish  on  the  subjective 
side  ;  a  poetic  sense  of  the  shifting  gloom 
and  glory  of  human  life  as  voiced  in 
nature  or  flashed  forth  in  the  bravery  and 
loyalty  of  human  kind  ;  a  pathetic  appre- 


220  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

elation  of  the  dreams  and  glories  of  relig- 
ion ;  and  a  power  over  the  mother  tongue 
very  impressive,  making  it  to  give  forth 
grave  chords  of  harmony  to  grief,  to  echo 
the  wild  joy  of  the  elements,  to  shrill  like 
clarions  in  the  onset  of  weapons,  or  to 
soften  in  the  mystic  melodies  of  worship. 
It  is  manly  poetry,  and  one  cannot  read 
it  and  fail  to  get  a  bracing  of  the  mental 
sinews,  and  a  larger  sense  of  the  essential 
qualities  of  one's  race  in  their  ideal  aspects 
and  deeper  workings.  Although  we  may 
declare  without  hesitation  that  English 
literature  is  stilt  to-day  Germanic  in  its 
backbone  and  vitals,  nevertheless  it  has 
been  subjected  to  so  much  of  outside  and 
disparate  influence  that,  compared  with  the 
literary  produce  of  the  Old  English  time, 
it  is  a  composite  thing.  Hence,  in  getting 
in  touch  with  Beowulf  or  with  some  of 
the  other  early  lyrics  and  ballads,  we  are 
going  back  to  the  originals,  and  are  given 
a  glimpse  at  the  substructure  whereupon 
is  built  the  noble  edifice  of  our  many- 
towered  and  multi-ornamented  literature. 
The  Old  English  lyric  (such  a  poem  as 
'The  Scald's  Lament  or  T'he  Seafarer)  is  the 
corner-stone ;  Tennyson  and  Browning, 


OLD    ENGLISH   POETRY  221 

Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  Hawthorne  and  Long- 
fellow, Emerson  and  Lowell,  are  the  lofty 
terraces  and  gracious  spires  which  pierce 
to  heaven  and  catch  the  eye  with  rapture 
from  afar,  seeming  unearthly  in  their 
aerial  splendor,  their  proportioned  and 
thoughtful  majesty. 


222  LITERARY    LIKINGS 


III 

WOMAN    IN    OLD    ENGLISH 
POETRY 

« 

IN  the  literary  history  of  the  nations 
certain  stimuli  have  always  evoked 
imaginative  expression  in  poetry.  Cer- 
tain ideals,  though  the  times  were  rude, 
and  crude  the  degree  of  civilization,  have 
irresistibly  inspired  the  makers  of  song 
and  story.  Nature  is  one  such :  Nature, 
with  her  elemental  forces,  her  protean 
moods,  her  lovely  witnesses  in  flower, 
tree,  and  bird,  in  field  and  sky,  in  moun- 
tain height  and  limitless  stretch  of  far- 
resounding  sea.  Such,  too,  is  man  himself 
on  his  heroic,  his  martial  and  mythic 
side :  blazoned  in  war  by  minstrel  and 
weaver  of  epic  poem ;  rich  with  the  stories 
showing  forth  the  valor,  faith,  and  patriot- 
ism of  humanity  in  a  thousand  perils  and 
shifts  of  fate.  Yet  another  such,  and  per- 
haps more  alluring  and  fruitful  as  a  motive 
than  any  other  in  the  cycle  of  themes  meet 
for  the  lyric  and  dramatic  expression  of  all 


WOMAN   IN   OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  223 

times  and  peoples,  is  the  subject  of  woman 
in  all  the  manifold  and  winsome  connota- 
tions of  the  word.  The  eternal  feminine 
has  lured  men  on  from  Eden's  day  to  our 
own.  Rob  literature,  rob  verse  of  this, 
and  you  leave  them  poor  indeed.  Col- 
onel Higginson  has  said  that  the  test  of  a 
civilization  is  the  estimate  of  women,  sug- 
gesting the  thought  that  the  apotheosis  of 
the  sex  in  song  is  a  registry  of  ethnic 
culture  as  well  as  of  ethnic  imagination. 

On  the  principle  of  beginning  the  story 
at  home,  the  most  ancient  English  literary 
product  may  be  examined  for  its  treatment 
of  woman.  So  may  light  be  thrown  back 
upon  the  social  life  of  the  period  prior  to 
the  Norman  Conquest,  and  a  background 
be  furnished  for  the  later  and  lovelier 
idealizations  of  the  female  type.  Nor 
should  the  quest  lack  genuine  aesthetic 
value  and  pleasure. 

The  role  of  woman  in  Old  English  poe- 
try is  comparatively  a  scant  one.  This 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  con- 
sider the  conditions  of  its  creation,  the 
life  it  represents.  Feuds  and  internecine 
strifes  claimed  the  main  strength  and  inter- 
est of  the  Anglo-Saxons  of  the  early  Chris- 


224  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

tian  centuries,  and  following  hard  on  these 
came  the  struggle  to  acquire  a  homestead 
and  wrest  a  living  from  the  soil.  In  such 
a  rude  and  utilitarian  day,  sentiment,  in 
the  modern  sense,  is  conspicuous  by  its 
absence.  With  the  present  in  mind  for 
contrast,  one  is  tempted  to  assert,  in  agree- 
ment with  Professor  Gummere,  that  "  there 
was  a  total  lack  of  sentiment  in  Germanic 
life,"  a  statement  including,  of  course,  the 
English,  although  farther  study  and  reflec- 
tion suggest  a  modification  of  so  sweeping 
a  remark.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  the  few 
glimpses  we  get  of  woman  are  precious, 
and  doubly  interesting  for  their  very  rarity. 
At  the  outset  we  must  realize  that  among 
the  Old  English  a  marriageable  maiden 
was  fought  for  rather  than  wooed,  or  bought 
from  her  parents  for  cash  down  instead  of 
gracefully  received  of  their  hands.  The 
surviving  folk-customs  of  Germany  and 
other  European  lands  help  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  sternly  business-like  nature 
of  these  early  compacts,  while  the  modern 
dot  still  preserves  in  the  centres  of  our 
civilization  a  tang  of  the  original  unideal 
practicality.  The  good  American  custom 
of  settling  things  with  the  girl  herself  first 


WOMAN   IN    OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  225 

and  with  her  father  afterwards  would  have 
met  with  small  favor  in  King  Alfred's  time 
and  before.  And  while  the  wife  and 
mother  had  a  certain  value  as  housekeeper, 
weaver,  and  child-bearer,  we  must  wait  for 
those  twin  humanizers,  the  church  and 
chivalry,  to  set  a  seal  on  woman  and  to 
beget  a  notion  of  the  mission  of  the  eter- 
nal feminine.  Another  German  tribe,  the 
Franks,  are  said  to  have  debated  in  a 
church  assembly  whether  or  not  a  woman 
was  a  human  being.  The  ideal  of  the  sex 
as  seen  in  the  poetry,  therefore,  must  be 
taken  in  relation  to  what  was  her  actual 
position  and  character  at  the  time,  with 
no  hope  of  the  modern  refinement,  the 
apotheosis  of  the  centuries.  Yet  here,  if 
anywhere,  when  treating  that  element  in 
society  which  in  any  age  draws  out  the 
finer  deeds  and  aspirations  of  men,  may 
we  look  for  a  softening  and  sweetening  of 
the  typical  Old  English  mood  and  mind. 
Nor,  examining  the  literary  remains,  are 
we  disappointed. 

Naturally  it  is  to  Beowulf,  the  one 
supreme  epic  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period, 
that  one  looks  for  the  richest  material  in 
our  inquiry.  Half  a  dozen  women  are 


226  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

mentioned  in  the  poem,  but,  as  is  natural 
in  a  narrative  poem  whose  dramatis  per- 
sons are  heroes,  nobles,  and  kings,  they 
are  all  of  the  queenly  class.  One  could 
wish  that  other  and  more  varied  types 
were  depicted,  and  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  we  shall  value  the  too  slight  references 
to  the  sex  under  less  lofty  conditions  of 
caste  to  be  found  scattered  among  a  few 
lyrics  outside  of  Beowulf.  By  far  the 
most  interesting  of  the  Beowulf  passages 
is  that  which  relates  to  Wealtheow,  the 
spouse  of  Hrothgar,  whose  hall  the  hero 
of  the  song  comes  to  guard.  She  is 
painted  with  gusto  by  the  bard  as  a  stately 
lady,  graciously  doing  the  courtesies  of 
her  high  station,  at  all  points  a  pleasing 
exemplar  of  the  house-regent  and  hostess 
for  her  royal  thane.  It  will  be  well  to 
translate  into  English  blank  verse  the  lines 
which  tell  of  her  and  her  service.  The 
scene  is  in  the  great  hall  Heorot  (which 
we  may  render  as  Stag  Horn)  wherein  the 
war  heroes  of  the  king  and  those  of  Beo- 
wulf are  feasting,  drinking,  singing,  and 
laughing,  in  the  hope  that  with  the  advent 
of  the  Danish  Beowulf  the  dread  of  the 
dragon  Grendel  shall  pass  away.  To  them, 


WOMAN  IN   OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  227 

in  the  midst  of  their  heartsome  revelry, 
enter  the  queen : 

"  Forth  came  Queen  Wealtheow, 
Of  Hrothgar  wife,  mindful  of  what  was  meet, 
Greeting  the  gold-decked  heroes  in  the  hall ; 
The  high-born  woman  gave  the  banquet  cup 
First  to  the  warder  of  the  East-Dane  homes, 
Bade  him  be  blithe  at  drinking,  he  so  dear 
Unto  his  folk  ;  right  joyous  he  partook 
Of  plate  and  beaker,  battle-famous  king. 
And  then  the  Helmung's  lady  walked  among 
The  veterans  and  the  striplings,  each  and  all, 
Proffering  the  jewelled  cups  until  it  happed 
The  queen  ring-wreathen  unto  Beowulf 
Mannerly-mooded  bore  the  mead-cup  full, 
Greeted  the  Geat's  prince  and  gave  thanks  to  God 
(Wise  in  her  words)  because  she  had  her  will, 
That  she  might  pin  her  faith  upon  an  earl 
Who  was  an  aid  in  evil.      He,  meanwhile, 
The  battle-brave,  received  it  at  her  hands 
And  made  a  song,  though  in  the  weeds  of  war. 

The  woman  liked  the  words  he  spake  full  well, 
The  boasting  of  the  Geat  ;  the  gold-decked  one, 
The  folk-queen  noble,  by  her  lord  sat  down." 

Certainly  this  is  a  pleasing  free-hand 
description  of  a  woman  on  her  social  and 
public  side.  We  observe  that  mannerli- 
ness, savoir  vivre,  a  carriage  and  etiquette 
befitting  her  station,  were  deemed  goodly 


228  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

things  for  such  a  person  to  cultivate  and 
possess.  Indeed,  this  glimpse  of  courtly 
life  reminds  one  more  strongly  of  the  late 
Minnesinger  period,  of  the  chivalric  fig- 
ures who  make  festal  and  alive  the  Nibe- 
lungen^  than  of  a  younger  and  compara- 
tively barbaric  day.  This  may  be  in  part 
explained  by  the  inevitable  idealization  of 
poetry.  The  picture  here  is  selective, 
heightened  from  the  truth.  Further  along 
in  the  epic  occurs  another  scene  in  which 
Wealtheow  again  bears  the  beaker  to  the 
king,  calls  him  "  lord  and  protector,"  and 
bids  him  be  generous  of  his  gifts  to  Beo- 
wulf. A  valuable  passage  for  our  purpose 
is  that  which  contrasts  the  characters  of 
the  two  queens,  Hygd  and  Thrytho.  The 
former,  Hygd,  is  the  wife  of  the  Geat 
Higelac,  Beowulfs  king,  and  is  drawn  as 
the  pattern  of  what  a  good  woman  should 
be  in  such  a  stead.  Thrytho,  contrari- 
wise, is  the  epitome  of  bad  qualities,  as 
seen  through  the  lenses  of  the  early  poet, 
a  sort  of  Lady  Macbeth  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages.  The  passage  may  be 
given : 

"  Right  young  was  Hygd, 
His  wife,  well-natured  too,  despite  that  she 


WOMAN   IN   OLD   ENGLISH    POETRY  229 

Full  few  of  years  had  bided  in  the  burgs, 
Daughter  of  Hareth  ;  not  familiar  she, 
Nor  yet  too  close  of  gifts  to  Geatish  folk, 
Of  costly  trinkets." 

So  far  the  bright  side.  It  is  worth 
noting  that  the  bard  commends  Hygd  for 
her  queenly  dignity,  not  allowing  herself 
to  be  on  too  free-and-easy  terms  with 
those  whom  she  outranks.  He  hastens 
to  say,  however,  that  she  is  all  right  in 
the  main  thing;  namely,  prodigal  in  dis- 
pensing her  largesses  of  gold  and  gems. 
Throughout  Old  English  literature  this 
attribute  is  praised  again  and  again  by  the 
poets,  whether  true  of  lords  or  ladies. 
Thus  the  stock  phrase  applied  to  free- 
handed earls  and  kings  is  "ring-dispenser." 
But  now  for  the  limning  of  the  less  ad- 
mirable sister  queen,  Thrytho,  a  name,  by 
the  way,  that  falls  anything  but  trippingly 
from  the  tongue  and  seems  ill-adapted  to 
the  music  of  poetry,  to  which  the  reply  is 
that  the  elder  English  verse-makers  cared 
little  for  consonantal  difficulties  —  were 
less  sensitive  to  musical  effects  than  is 
the  case  with  their  modern  commensals. 
This  lady,  then,  is  spouse  to  the  Angle 
king,  Offi,  and  appears  to  be  lugged  in 


230  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

solely    for   a   foil    to   the   virtues   of  the 
young  Hygd : 

"Thrytho's  mood  was  wroth, 
The  haughty  folk-queen,  evil  was  her  mind, 
No  bold  one  in  the  trusted  retinue 
Durst  venture  (  save  her  lawful  lord  alone  ) 
To  look  into  her  eyes  on  any  day  ; 
For  sorry  death-chains  she  would  lay  on  him 
Hand-wrought ;  and  soon  thereafter,  hand-fights  o'er, 
Were  weapons  ready.      So  that  hostile  swords 
Must  be  the  arbiters  and  murders  make. 
Such  is  no  queenly  custom,  nowise  fit 
For  lady's  doing,  though  she  peerless  be, 
That  she,  peace-weaver,  take  the  mortal  life 
Of  some  dear  liegeman  for  a  fancied  slight." 

How  such  a  portrait  makes  us  feel  the 
distance  of  this  civilization  from  ours! 
What  a  very  termagant  is  here  revealed 
to  us  —  a  woman  terrible  to  face,  like  a 
blood-thirsty  animal  for  quarrel  and  kill- 
ing, ungovernable  in  her  passions,  a 
stirrer-up  of  tribal  troubles,  and  alto- 
gether dreadful !  That  such  a  wolfish  dis- 
position did  not  seem  by  any  means  so 
awful  to  a  contemporary  as  it  does  to  us, 
is  pretty  sure.  Women's  names  in  gen- 
eral, from  the  fifth  to  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, throw  light  on  this,  for  they  are 


WOMAN   IN    OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  231 

often  grimly  truculent;  witness,  Krimhild 
(Battle-mask)  and  Brunhild  (Battle-coat) 
in  the  Nibelungen ;  Sigrum  (Battle-rime) 
in  the  Norse  Saga  ;  and  Hildeburg  (Battle- 
town)  and  Beadohild  (Battle-maid)  in 
different  Old  English  songs.  In  the 
lines  just  translated  the  beautiful  epithet, 
"  peace-weaver,"  applied  reproachfully  to 
Thrytho  for  her  lack  in  the  suggested 
qualities,  is  an  oft-recurring  expression  for 
women,  especially  those  of  high  or  royal 
rank.  It  might  be  inferred  carelessly  that 
members  of  the  sex  were  regarded  typically 
as  white  doves  of  gentleness  in  character. 
It  is  believed  by  scholars,  however,  that 
this  sobriquet  was  not  so  subjective  as 
this,  but  rather  had  reference  to  the  fre- 
quent part  played  by  woman  when  given 
in  marriage  between  hostile  tribes,  peace 
being  patched  up  thereby,  to  last  for  a 
longer  or  shorter  time.  Even  with  this 
explanation,  a  seemly  part  to  play,  even  a 
beautiful,  whether  in  the  bluff  days  of  war 
or  in  the  piping  times  of  peace ;  the  sense 
of  the  innate  feminine  gentleness  is  present 
plainly  in  the  poet's  remark  that  such-like 
behavior  was  neither  queenly  nor  womanly. 
On  the  whole,  though,  we  may  feel  assured 


23  2  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

that  the  hints  of  savagery  in  such  a  char- 
acter as  the  Walkyrie  Brunhild  hit  nearer 
the  mark  than  a  milder  type  like  Krim- 
hild ;  that  Thrythos  were  quite  as  common 
as  Hygds. 

The  reference  to  Queen  Hildeburg, 
consort  of  King  Finn,  of  the  Jutes,  is 
interesting  because  it  touches  on  that 
always  sweet  thing,  mother  and  brother 
love.  There  is  a  feud  between  the  Danes, 
led  by  Hraef,  and  the  Jutes,  and  Hilde- 
burg has  the  misfortune  to  be  a  kins- 
woman of  Hraef,  who  is  killed  in  the 
conflict,  Finn,  too,  being  slain  later  him- 
self. So  the  poor  queen  is  in  a  hard  case, 
having  her  nearest  and  dearest  on  both 
sides  in  the  quarrel,  —  a  situation  some- 
times duplicated  in  our  American  civil 
war.  The  bard  says  of  her : 

"  All  blameless  she, 

Yet  in  the  shield-play  shorn  of  those  most  lief, 
Of  bairns  and  brothers  ;  wounded  by  the  spears, 
By  fate  they  fell  —  a  sorry  woman  she." 

And  a  little  later  on  is  told  how  she 
had  child  and  brother  burned  together  on 
one  funeral  pyre,  this  disposition  of  the 
dead  recalling  classic  scenes: 


WOMAN   IN    OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY 


233 


"  Then  bade  them  Hildeburg  her  own  dear  son 
To  fasten  in  the  flames  on  Hraef,  his  pyre ; 
Wretched  she  wept  upon  his  shoulder  there, 
Bemoaned  with  wailing  songs." 

That  is  a  fine  touch  of  mother  love 
again,  when  Higelac,  in  his  praise  of  Beo- 
wulf the  deliverer,  declares  that  it  was  a 
lucky  woman  who  begot  such  a  man : 

"  Lo,  whatsoever  woman  of  the  tribes 
Among  mankind  begot  the  child,  if  so 
She  liveth  yet,  may  soothly  say,  to  her 
The  Ancient  Measurer  hath  gracious  been 
Of  son  birth." 

Another  and  a  final  sketch  of  the  female 
type  in  Beowulf  is  that  of  Freaware,  the 
winsome  daughter  of  Hrothgar.  Like  to 
her  mother,  she  is  represented  as  playing 
Ganymede  to  the  revellers  in  Stag  Horn, 
the  lofty  hall  crowned  with  deer  antlers, 
and  in  her  person  the  poet  once  more 
exemplifies  the  function  of  the  sex  in  allay- 
ing bad  blood  and  uniting  warring  tribes : 

"  Whilom  did  Hrothgar's  daughter  to  the  earls} 
To  all  the  soldiery  in  order  due, 
The  ale-filled  vessels  bear.      Freaware  the  name 
I  heard  her  called  by  some.      And  there  she  gave 
The  studded  gems  to  heroes.      She  is  plight 


234  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Young,  gold-adorned,  to  Froda's  happy  son, 
The  scylding's  lord  hath  said  Amen  to  this, 
The  Kingdom's  ward,  and  reckons  it  for  rede 
That  he  through  her  may  soothe  a  deal  of  woe, 
Of  slaughterous  feuds." 

But  we  learn  in  the  next  canto  that,  as 
not  seldom  happens,  the  intertribal  trouble 
thus  appeased  by  the  union  of  Freaware 
and  Ingild  was  renewed,  when  after  a 
season  (alas !  the  inconstancy  of  human 
nature)  the  husband's  wife-love  had  cooled 
down  in  the  face  of  overwhelming  cares. 

So  much  for  woman  as  she  gleams  tran- 
siently on  the  canvas  in  the  greatest  of 
our  Old  English  heroic  poems.  Pleasing, 
on  the  whole,  are  these  portraits,  showing 
her  in  the  heartful  relations  of  kin  and 
family ;  as  the  tactful  hostess,  recalling 
Chaucer's  Nun,  since 

«« In  curtesie  was  set  full  moche  her  leste  ;  ' ' 
» 

as  one  pouring  oil  upon  the  troublous 
waters  of  war.  Here  is  testimony  that  the 
influence  which  has  done  so  much  for  the 
refinement  and  amelioration  of  society  was 
here  at  work,  albeit  under  stern  restric- 
tions of  time  and  place.  We  may  now 
supplement  the  Beowulfian  material  with 


WOMAN   IN   OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  235 

the  shreds  and  patches  of  poetic  hint  and 
statement  to  be  found  in  minor  poems  of 
the  primary  and  heathen  period. 

In  the  earliest  lyric,  'The  Scald's  La- 
ment, one  of  the  six  strophes  which  com- 
pose it  tells  of  the  sad  plight  of  one 
Beadhild,  daughter  of  Nithad  and  Leman 
of  Weland,  the  mythic  smith  of  Germanic 
legend.  Having  loved  not  wisely  but  too 
well,  she  is  left  lonely  to  bear  the  burden 
of  her  misstep.  The  poet  describes  her 
case  in  this  wise: 

"  Her  brother's  death  to  Beadhild  never  sunk 
So  deep  in  mind  as  did  her  own  sore  stead, 
That  she  perforce  must  know  it  for  a  truth 
How  she  was  eaning,  and  could  nowise  tell 
What  she  might  do." 

From  this  passage  it  may  be  inferred 
at  least  that  unchastity  was  frowned  upon 
and  purity  among  women  set  store  by  with 
the  English  long  before  the  Norman  Con- 
quest. The  word  of  Tacitus  as  to  the 
Germans  is  in  agreement  with  this  idea, 
the  eulogy,  of  course,  applying  as  well  to  a 
sister  tribe  like  the  Anglo-Saxons,  a  later 
offshoot  from  the  Continent.  The  strong 
clan  and  kin  feeling  of  the  Germanic 


236  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

peoples  was  all  in  favor  of  the  feminine 
virtue  which  in  time  has  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  touchstone  of  female  excel- 
lence. A  passage  in  the  lyric  Widsith 
is  similar  to  several  cited  in  Beowulf, 
in  that  it  depicts  a  queen  as  gracious  gold- 
giver.  The  Wanderer  (Widsith)  is  the 
typical  figure  of  the  Old  English  scald 
travelling  from  land  to  land,  attaching  him- 
self to  some  king  or  over-lord,  and  making 
his  heroic  songs  of  the  chief's  prowess,  to 
receive  in  return  sure  meed  of  gift  and 
food  and  a  vassal's  privilege  in  hall  and 
by  hearthstone.  But  in  the  end  the  bard 
feels  that  his  princely  patron  will  win  im- 
mortality by  his  lay  and  so  get  no  mean 
reward  in  his  turn,  just  as  Shakespeare  in 
his  sonnet  feels  that  he  is  bestowing 
enduring  fame  upon  the  boy  he  lauds  and 
loves ;  as  Dante  was  sure  he  was  embalm- 
ing for  after  ages  the  stately  beauty  of 
Beatrice.  This  strolling  songman,  now, 
has  been  telling  how  on  his  wanderings 
King  Ermanaric,  of  the  Goths,  gave  him  of 
rings  and  money  which  he,  faithful  liege- 
man that  he  was,  on  his  coming  back  put 
into  the  hands  of  his  patron  and  lord, 
Eadgils,  actuated  by  gratitude  because  that 


WOMAN   IN    OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  237 

ruler  had  bestowed  an  estate  upon  his 
father  before  him,  which  the  Wanderer  in 
due  course  inherited.  But  another  land- 
holding,  he  goes  on,  was  given  him  by 
good  Queen  Ealdhild,  the  spouse  of 
Eadgils : 

"  Ealdhild  herself  to  me  another  gave, 

The  stately  queen  unto  the  liegeman,  she 

Was  Edwin's  daughter;  praise  of  her  was  borne 

Through  many  lands  whenso  my  songs  were  sung, 

Of  how  I  saw  her  fair  beneath  the  sky, 

The  gold-adorned  dispensing  of  her  gifts." 

This  again  is  pleasing  and  implies  an 
attractive  feudal  relation.  It  does  not 
have  the  hollow  ring  of  the  perfunctory 
court  poetry  of  subsequent  centuries,  when 
the  vices  of  a  royal  personage  were  chanted 
as  virtues,  and  the  pimples  on  his  face 
apostrophized  as  suitable  subject-matter 
for  the  Muse! 

A  mysterious  but  very  suggestive  poem 
is  that  called  'The  Wifes  Lament^  a  lyric 
of  fifty  odd  lines,  in  which  a  woman 
who  seems  to  be  exiled  from  her  hus- 
band and  is  bewailing  her  fate  pours  out 
her  lonesome  soul  in  an  authentically 
deep-hearted  way.  Grief,  and  the  honest 


23 8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

attempt  at  its  expression,  is  the  same  the 
world  over  and  time  on  end.  Even  in 
the  part  paraphrase  herewith  offered  some- 
what of  this,  I  trust,  may  be  felt: 

"  Lonesome,  I  make  this  song  full  sorrowfully 
About  my  fate  ;  and  I  am  fain  to  tell 
How  I  have  bided  grief  since  I  was  born ; 
Grief  new  and  old,  but  never  more  than  now. 

Erstwhile,  my  lord  fared  hence  from  midst  his  kin 
Over  the  strife  of  billows  ;  night-care  then 
Was  mine,  to  know  what  country  might  be  his. 

My  lord  he  bade  me  here  make  mine  abode, 

But  in  this  landstead  I  had  naught  of  bliss, 

Of  trusty  friends.      Wherefore  my  mood  is  sad. 

Full  oft  we  wagered  in  the  days  agone 
That  naught  save  death  itself  should  sever  us 
From  one  another.      Ah,  how  all  is  changed  ! 
It  is  as  if  it  were  not,  friendship  ours  ! 

Full  oft  am  I 

Grown  bitter  o'er  the  leaving  of  my  love. 
Somewhere  on  earth  my  friends  are  living  lief, 
They  lie  in  beds  —  while  I  at  dawn  must  go 
Lonely  beneath  my  oak-tree  in  the  clove 
And  sit  there  all  the  summerlong  day  and  weep 
My  wretched  woes,  my  many  miseries. 
For  that  I  may  not  rest  me  from  my  cares, 
My  homesick  longings  which  begirt  my  life. 


WOMAN   IN   OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY   239 

Woe  to  the  wight  that  must  abide  her  Dear 
With  sad  desire." 

There  is  little  that  is  temporal  in  the 
accent  of  this  sorrow.  It  is  what  we  hear 
alike  in  the  Song  of  Solomon,  the  Greek 
dramatists,  the  Elizabethan  lyrics,  and  the 
Tennysonian  Idyls  of  the  King.  It  has 
the  dignity  and  directness  of  an  elemental 
emotion.  The  setting,  the  incidents,  only 
half  revealed  and  shadowy,  are  of  minor 
importance.  But  we  may  notice  the  char- 
acteristic Germanic  flavor  of  the  lay  in  the 
manner  in  which  the  feeling  for  kin  and 
home  is  interblent  with  the  love  of  hus- 
band, furnishing  a  congruous  background 
to  the  closer,  keener  woe.  The  woman 
is  a  "  wretch  "  —  the  word  signifies  ety- 
mologically  one  exiled  from  the  native 
land  —  and  this  thought  and  fact  enters 
into  and  intensifies  her  misery. 

The  poetry  so  far  drawn  upon  has  been 
heathen,  pre-Christian  in  both  theme  and 
treatment.  With  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  verse  one  would  expect,  natur- 
ally, a  change  in  the  depiction  of  woman 
under  idealized  literary  forms ;  an  approx- 
imation to  the  modern  view.  The  human- 
izing influence  of  the  more  gentle  religion 


240  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

would  tend  to  effect  this,  especially  in  a 
faith  which  elevates  Mary  to  so  lofty  a 
place  as  co-equal  with  her  divine  Son. 
But  the  poetical  remains  are  somewhat 
disappointing  in  this  respect  during  the 
true  Anglo-Saxon  period,  say  up  to  the 
twelfth  century.  This  is  in  part  explained 
by  the  subject-matter  of  the  epics  and 
lyrics,  mostly  monk-made  and  inspired 
by  biblical  or  hagiographical  literature. 
Caedmon  and  Cynewulf  based  their  work 
upon  the  Old  Testament,  or  upon  some 
of  the  many  legends  of  the  church.  Hence 
either  the  female  element  is  scant,  or  the 
types  are  conventional  and  prescribed  by 
the  material.  Again,  it  needs  time  before 
a  new  religion  can  take  deep  hold  of  the 
imagination  and  display  itself  in  literature. 
The  old  heathen  admiration  for  power 
and  bravery  in  woman  rather  than  the 
so-called  womanly  qualities  of  modern 
civilization,  breaks  out  now  and  then  and 
offers  an  amusing  illustration  of  the  cling- 
ing to  earlier,  coarser  ideals.  The  atti- 
tude toward  the  Virgin  expressed  in  the 
popular  line, 

'«  Mary  mother,  meek  and  mild," 
so  common  in  later  mediaeval  song,  can- 


WOMAN   IN   OLD    ENGLISH   POETRY  241 

not  be  found  at  this  time,  and  a  woman- 
type  of  the  Middle  Ages,  like  Heloi'se,  is 
still  centuries  away.  The  treatment  of 
the  sex  still  best  relished  by  the  singers  is 
exhibited  in  the  way  a  vigorous  and  pict- 
uresque poet  seizes  on  the  Apocryphal 
story  of  Judith  and  Holofernes  and  makes 
that  belligerent  maiden  protagonist  in 
scenes  he  thoroughly  appreciates  and,  be 
it  confessed,  commends.  At  the  same 
time,  the  changes  from  the  Hebrew  nar- 
rative are  revelatory  of  the  Germanic 
ideals  ;  Judith  is  converted  from  a  wealthy 
widow  into  a  virgin  of  glittering  loveli- 
ness ;  very  beautiful,  if  Walkyrish  in  her 
battle  mood.  These  naive  transpositions 
and  adaptations  constitute  the  most  inter- 
esting and  subtle  part  of  the  story  of  the 
Old  English  woman  creation  in  the  early 
Christian  literature.  This  one  illustration 
may  serve  for  the  whole  class  in  indicating 
the  favorite  type  in  this  verse,  although 
the  new  religion  nominally  was  accepted. 
I  take  up  the  story  where  the  heroine, 
having  beheaded  the  heathen  ruler  in  the 
tent  scene,  returns  with  her  attendant  to 
her  own  city,  Bethalia,  wearing  the  grisly 
trophy : 


242  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"And  so  had  Judith  speeded  in  the  feud 

Most  gloriously,  as  God  had  given  her  ; 

And  now,  wise  maid,  she  quickly  brought  the  head 

All  bloody  of  the  warrior  in  a  sack, 

The  which  her  damsel  (fair-cheek  girl  was  she 

Of  gentle  breeding)  to  the  mistress  dear 

Had  thither  fetched  ;  and  gave  it  in  her  hand 

Wound-sodden,  for  to  bear  it  home  :   so  did 

Mistress  to  maid.      Then  swiftly  sped  away 

The  twain,  both  women  valorous  of  mind, 

Till  they  had  left  —  these  much  enheartened  ones 

Now  happy  —  far  behind  the  hostile  host, 

And  plainly  saw  Bethalia's  winsome  walls 

Shine  in  the  sun,  fair  city." 

They  reach  the  gates,  are  welcomed  by 
the  warder,  enter  the  town,  and  there  is 
general  rejoicing  at  the  good  news  which 
Judith  brings  : 

"  And  then  the  wise,  the  gold-bedecked  one 
Of  mindful  mood,  did  bid  them  straight  unroll 
The  heathen  war-man's  head  and  show  it  for 
A  sign  unto  the  burghers,  how  that  she 
Had  prospered  in  the  battle  ;  then  she  spoke, 
The  high-born  maid,  unto  the  people  all : 
'  O  heroes  victor-famed,  behold  ye  here, 
Ye  leaders  all,  this  loathliest  of  men, 
Of  heathen  battle  kings,  his  head  a-stare  ! 
Unloving  Holofernes,  it  is  he. 
Who  of  all  men  against  us  most  has  wrought 
Of  murders  and  sore  sorrows  and  would  eke 


WOMAN   IN    OLD    ENGLISH    POETRY  243 

Them  out  yet  further :   but  God  granted  him 
No  longer  life,  nor  let  him  harass  us 
With  harms  ;  for  I  have  overborne  the  Prince 
Through  God,  his  might.      Now  would  I  call  upon 
Each  man  of  you,  each  dweller  in  the  burg, 
Shield  warriors,  that  ye,  forth-soon  as  you  may, 
Do  fit  you  for  the  fight  ;  so  soon  as  God 
The  Maker,  goodly  King,  doth  from  the  east 
Send  leaping  light,  bear  out  the  linden  shields, 
The  battle-boards  for  bodies  and  for  breasts, 
Keen  helmets,  for  to  fell  amongst  the  foe 
Folk-leaders,  with  your  gay  ensanguined  swords, 
The  fated  chiefs.      Those  fiends  are  doomed  to  death, 
And  ye  shall  win  the  day,  the  glory,  too, 
As  God  the  mighty  has  betokened  you 
Through  this  my  hand." 

This  is  a  ringing  virile  exhortation  to 
arms,  a  cry  that  might  have  come  from  a 
Joan  of  Arc  of  an  earlier  day.  Judith's 
fierce  mood  has  in  it  the  leaven  of 
righteousness,  notice.  She  likes  war,  evi- 
dently, but  she  loves  God,  and  fights  the 
Assyrians  to  His  glory.  Herein  she 
differs  from  a  type  like  Thrytho,  and 
marks  the  sublimation  to  a  degree  of  a 
primitive  and  strenuously  earthly  passion. 

I  wish  I  might  in  closing  give  one  or 
two  representative  selections  in  the  lyric 
and  hence,  perhaps,  more  pleasing  vein, 
but  to  remain  within  the  Old  English 


244  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

domain,  and  do  so,  is  not  easy.  When  we 
pass  into  the  Middle  English  period,  lyric 
song  begins  with  full  chorus  and  a  morn- 
ing freshness ;  but  that  takes  us  beyond 
the  present  quest.  The  passages  already 
adduced  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  types  and 
ideals  of  woman  in  the  first  and  oldest 
English  poetry,  with  its  peculiar  defects 
and  virtues.  An  indefiniteness  of  per- 
sonal characterization  or  portraiture  will 
have  been  noticed  in  these  examples  of 
the  feminine  role  in  our  native  song  of  the 
remote  past.  Description,  minute  and 

Physical,  of  these  old-time  queens  and 
idies  fair  we  have  found  little  of;  outline 
sketches  they  are ;  pastelles,  if  you  will, 
and  the  figures  are  almost  as  vague  as 
those  shades  in  Hades  whom  Virgil  per- 
ceived to  cast  no  shadows.  Yet  so  much 
the  more  is  left  to  the  imagination,  and 
remembering  how  long  they  have  been 
"  dust  and  ashes,"  what  a  vast  evolution, 
social,  ethical,  psychologic,  lies  between 
them  and  us,  and  how  verily  alive  and 
picturesque  they  were  indubitably  in  their 
day  and  generation,  one  waxes  sympathetic 
toward  them,  after  all,  and  drops  into  the 
mood  of  Villon's  "  Mais  ou  sont  les  neiges 


WOMAN   IN    OLD   ENGLISH   POETRY  245 

d'antan  ?  "  One  quotes  in  dreamy  remin- 
iscence the  lines  wherein  Browning  broods 
over  and  bids  good-by  to  the  vanished 
ladies  of  another  clime  and  time : 

"  Dear  dead  women,  with  such  hair  too  :  what's  be- 
come of  all  the  gold 

Used  .to  hang  and  brush  their  bosoms  ?  I  feel  chilly 
and  grown  old." 


Washington  Irving's  Services  to 
American  History 


*  WASHINGTON    IRVING'S    SER- 
VICES TO  AMERICAN  HISTORY 


VJI7HEN  a  writer  has  won  the  title  of 
**  the  Father  of  American  Literature  — 
a  name  conventionally  given  to  Washing- 
ton Irving  —  it  becomes  plain  that  he  is 
very  important  as  a  figure  in  our  native 
development  in  letters.  His  contribution 
was  indeed  great.  With  the  century  only 
just  begun  and  our  republic  less  than 
twenty  years  in  working  order,  he  did 
work  as  essayist  and  story-teller  challeng- 
ing contrast  with  the  best  in  the  same 
kinds  in  England,  and  became  not  only  a 
great  American  author,  but  a  personage 
admired,  lauded,  and  loved  in  European 
lands  as  a  literary  and  social  force  of  his 
day.  This  seems  all  the  more  noteworthy 
when  we  realize  the  adverse  conditions 
under  which  a  man  of  letters  had  to 

*  Originally  given  as  a  lecture  at  the  Old  South  Church, 
Bostor,  in  one  of  the  historical  courses  conducted  yearly  in 
that  place. 


250  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

struggle  at  that  time.  Here  was  a  New 
York  lad  of  middle-class  Scotch-English 
parentage,  reared  to  a  business  life  and 
harassed  for  years  by  mercantile  failure, 
lacking  a  classical  or  college  education, 
and  living  in  a  city  of  whose  deficiency  in 
the  amenities  of  art,  literature,  and  society 
we  get  a  clear  picture  in  Mr.  Warner's 
monograph  on  Irving.  There  was  little 
there  to  nurse  genius  like  Irving's.  Poli- 
tics and  law  were  the  only  apparent  career 
for  the  ambitious  youth.  It  is  estimated 
that  in  1822  there  were  not  more  than 
ten  men  of  letters  of  repute  in  this  land. 
Nevertheless,  being  of  a  gay,  social  nature 
and  having  as  the  gift  of  the  gods  the 
literary  instinct  and  bias  strongly  marked 
and  perseveringly  developed,  he  was  able 
to  win  a  well-founded  fame,  and  even  at 
that  early  day  draw  the  attention  of  the 
mother  country  to  the  United  States  as  a 
part  of  the  English-speaking  race  hence- 
forth to  be  reckoned  with  in  literature. 

Irving  had  fewer  rivals  then  than  he 
would  have  had  to-day  —  granted  ;  other- 
wise the  conditions  were  all  against  him. 
Yet  we  have  to  skip  to  Emerson  if  we 
would  get  a  name  at  all  worthy  to  be  set 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S   SERVICES    251 

along  with  his  as  a  writer.  It  is  worth 
mentioning,  in  view  of  our  special  theme, 
Irving's  part  in  American  history,  that  at 
the  period  when  he  began  to  write  —  in 
1 807,  say,  the  date  of  the  Salmagundi 
papers  —  the  impulse  of  the  native  author 
to  follow  English  traditions  in  letters  was 
well-nigh  irresistible,  infinitely  stronger 
than  it  is  at  the  present  time.  Yet  Irving, 
while  in  works  like  Eracebridge  Hall  he  is 
essentially  an  English  essayist,  in  his  best, 
most  characteristic  work  used  native  mate- 
rial and  showed  himself  a  very  American, 
and  so  made  American  literature. 

We  must  realize  the  scanty  encourage- 
ment of  his  environment  and  the  noble 
way  he  used  near-at-hand,  familiar,  and 
hence  despised  material,  in  order  to  come 
to  an  understanding  of  the  man,  the 
writer,  the  historian.  For  it  is  as  histo- 
rian that  I  would  deal  with  him  here; 
which  leads  me  to  say  that  Washington 
Irving  stands  somewhat  apart  from  our 
other  native  historians.  We  think  of  him 
primarily  as  a  literary  man,  an  essayist, 
story-maker,  and  humorist.  The  literary 
quality  was  strong,  of  course,  in  men  like 
Prescott,  Motley,  and  Parkman,  but  never- 


252  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

theless  they  were  first  and  foremost  writers 
of  history.  Irving,  despite  the  fact  that 
he  wrote  several  books  of  importance  in 
that  field,  may  almost  be  said  to  have 
written  history  by  the  way,  to  have  been 
side-tracked  into  it ;  or  if  that  is  putting 
it  too  strong,  there  is  no  danger  in  the 
statement  that  our  writer  will  be  longest 
remembered  by  his  non-historical  works 
—  by  genial  sketches  like  Rip  Van  Winkle 
and  The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow ',  and  by  a 
masterpiece  of  mock-heroic  humor  like 
'The  History  of  New  Tork,  whose  alleged 
author  was  that  mysterious  little  Dutch- 
man, Diedrich  Knickerbocker,  a  name  so 
rich  in  connotation,  so  firmly  embedded 
in  the  popular  mind.  And  yet  Washing- 
ton Irving,  for  the  very  reason  that  he 
was  what  he  was,  a  man  of  letters,  par 
excellence,  whose  notable  qualities  are  senti- 
ment and  humor,  was  able  to  leave  some 
valuable  suggestions  to  all  historians  in  his 
methods,  and  to  introduce  into  that  kind 
of  writing  certain  characteristics  that  give 
it  salt  and  savor.  It  is  not  alone  books 
like  his  Life  of  Washington  and  his  Life 
of  Columbus  that  constitute  his  contribution 
to  American  history ;  nor  is  the  whole 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S    SERVICES    253 

story  told  when  we  add  the  books  on 
exotic  themes,  like  the  Alhambra^  Conquest 
of  Granada^  and  Legends  of  The  Conquest  of 
Spain,  where  he  set  an  example,  in  a  day 
when  the  native  historian  was  a  rara  avis, 
of  the  adequate  treatment  of  large  inspira- 
tional themes  from  whatever  source.  No, 
those  Sketch  Book  stories  and  the  Knicker- 
bocker History  —  that  sportive  thing,  a 
confessed  jeu  dy  esprit —  must  be  counted 
in  as  contributory  and,  to  my  mind,  im- 
portant. Let  me  show  what  I  mean,  by 
going  a  little  into  the  details  of  what  I 
deem  to  be  Irving's  crowning  virtues  in 
historical  composition. 

But  first  a  preliminary  remark,  to  the 
effect  that  Washington  Irving  must  be 
judged,  as  indeed  all  men  must  be,  in  the 
setting  of  his  time.  Viewed  in  relation  to 
current  production  in  history  or  to  what 
had  already  been  done,  he  is  seen  to  have 
possessed  the  instinct  and  habit  of  the 
true  historian,  the  modern  workman.  I 
mean  that  he  went  to  the  sources  and 
spared  neither  time  nor  labor  in  getting 
together  his  materials.  Witness  the  years 
spent  in  the  libraries  and  other  repositories 
of  Spain,  when  he  was  working  on  his 


254  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Columbus  and  other  main  books.  The 
result  is  that,  in  spite  of  the  enormous 
amount  of  research  since  expended  upon 
the  Italian  whose  name  is  associated  with 
our  country's  discovery,  the  Irving  biog- 
raphy is  confessedly  a  standard  one  to-day, 
and  this  quite  aside  from  its  great  literary 
merits.  The  method  of  Irving,  at  the 
beginning  of  this  century,  is  essentially 
that  of  the  present — something  quite 
different,  for  example,  from  the  method  of 
Jared  Sparks,  whose  biographies  were 
later  in  time.  This  consideration  —  Irv- 
ing's  natural  critical  insight,  as  well  as 
his  thorough-going  habits  in  preparation 
for  historical  writing  —  is  no  slight  one, 
and  must  be  counted  to  his  credit.  His 
apparent  indolence  in  the  intermittent 
periods  of  idleness  between  his  works 
should  mislead  no  one  into  thinking  him 
a  careless  workman. 

But  it  is  chiefly  to  the  more  literary 
features  of  the  work  that  I  wish  to  call 
attention,  as  marking  Irving  among  our 
historians.  What  are  they  ?  In  the  first 
place,  his  was  a  mind  naturally  retrospec- 
tive, loving  to  brood  upon  the  past  of  his 
own  and  other  countries,  and  sensitive  to 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S   SERVICES    255 

the  romance  therein  to  be  discovered.  All 
he  wrote  is  explained  in  this  "way.  He 
brooded  on  the  Hudson,  and  Rip  Van 
Winkle  and  Ichabod  Crane  are  the  result ; 
on  Old  New  York,  and  the  comic  Dutch- 
man is  evolved  for  all  time ;  on  Old 
English  customs  and  types,  and  Brace- 
bridge  Hall  springs  into  being;  on  the 
vanished  dramas,  glories,  and  heroics  of 
Spain,  and  the  Spanish  books  follow  in 
train.  In  a  word,  he  had  imagination  in 
reconstructing  by-gone  scenes  and  events, 
a  faculty  without  which  the  historian  is 
likely  to  be  a  Dr.  Dryasdust,  necessary, 
useful,  but  unlovely. 

But  right  here  we  get  into  deep  water 
with  Irving,  for  certain  criticisms  are  inev- 
itable. How  can  a  work  like  the  Knick- 
erbocker History  be  praised  as  history  ? 
The  full-length  of  the  Dutchman  therein 
drawn  is  not  portraiture,  but  caricature ; 
the  style  is  not  serious,  but  serio-comic. 
And  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  figure,  broad  of 
beam,  slow  of  speech,  surrounded  with  a 
fog  of  tobacco  and  much  given  to  sleep 
and  heavy  eating,  has  been  indelibly  im- 
pressed upon  us  by  the  author's  genius,  so 
that  to  this  day  the  word  Dutchman,  in 


256  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

spite  of  our  better  knowledge,  is  surcharged 
with  these  humoristic  associations.  This 
may  be,  and  is,  a  triumph  of  art  and  a  dis- 
tinct addition  to  humor ;  but  is  it  not  inju- 
rious to  history  proper,  and  incidentally 
hard  on  the  Dutchman  ?  Professor  Brander 
Matthews,  for  one,  regrets  that  Irving 
should  have  "  echoed  the  British  scoffs  at 
the  Dutch,"  though  admitting  that  there 
was  "  no  malice  in  his  satire."  Yet  in 
closing  his  sketch  of  this  author  he  boldly 
declares  that  his  greatest  work  is  the 
Knickerbocker  legend.  This  sounds  like 
a  paradox,  but  it  can  be  explained  ;  and,  I 
think,  without  going  so  far  as  Professor 
Matthews,  we  may  concede  that  the  Knick- 
erbocker History  is,  in  a  broad  sense,  a 
contribution,  if  not  to  history,  to  the  sym- 
pathetic appreciation  of  America's  historic 
past  —  and  if  that  be  not  history,  it  is 
hard  to  name  it.  A  book  that  vitalizes, 
even  in  the  way  of  fun,  our  earlier  records 
and  doings,  that  draws  attention  to,  and 
makes  interesting  the  types  and  scenes  of, 
pioneer  days,  indirectly  does  good.  It 
creates  an  atmosphere  favorable  to  farther 
investigation.  It  makes  a  tradition  of  de- 
scent and  keeps  alive  a  sense  of  ancestry. 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S    SERVICES    257 

Think  how  proudly  a  modern  New  York 
family  points  to  Knickerbocker  forbears ; 
and  pride  and  interest  in  ancestry  is  one 
of  the  safeguards  of  self-conscious  historic 
continuity.  Approaching  the  subject  with 
the  bias  of  a  poor,  simple-minded  literary 
man,  despite  the  historical  critics,  Irving's 
chief  work  of  humor  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  most  fruitful  for  histories  yet  to 
come,  to  have  fertilized  the  soil,  making  it 
genial  and  rich. 

And  then,  again,  he  did  a  great  service 
in  his  use  of  native  legend.  What !  you 
say ;  can  any  claim  of  history-making  be 
awarded  to  stories  of  a  village  vagabond 
like  Rip  or  goblin-haunted  Yankee  like 
Ichabod  ?  Surely  such-like  tales  have  no 
more  historical  foundation  than  the  Con- 
necticut Blue  Laws  or  the  snakes  in  Ire- 
land. Ah,  but  softly !  The  Hudson 
river  is  one  of  the  noble  and  beautiful 
American  streams  ;  but  when  you  think  of 
it,  do  you  suppose  it  is  no  more  to  you 
than  it  was  prior  to  the  day  when  Irving 
gave  it  atmosphere  ?  It  is  quite  another 
thing.  Before,  it  was  a  majestic  water- 
lane,  more  than  rivalling  the  Rhine  in 
natural  beauty.  Now  it  is  that  same  river 


258  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

seen  through  the  mellow  light  of  romance 
and  legendry.  It  partakes  of  the  glamour 
which  that  famed  German  river  has  for  us 
by  reason  of  its  nixies,  its  castles,  and  its 
vineyards,  with  a  story  in  every  grape. 
Irving  set  the  seal  of  the  poetic  imagina- 
tion upon  the  Hudson ;  and  that  is  a  great 
thing  to  do  for  us.  He  gave  it  a  back- 
ground, perspective,  human  interest. 
When  I  think  of  it,  I  see  old  Heinrich 
Hudson  blundering  up  stream  and  expect- 
ing to  find  the  passage  to  China  ;  Hudson, 
that  seaman  of  renown,  who  "  laid  in 
abundance  of  gin  and  sauerkraut"  and 
allowed  every  man  "  to  sleep  quietly  at  his 
post  unless  the  wind  blew;"  Hudson, 
whom  it  is  impossible  not  to  have  an  af- 
fection for  after  you  have  met  him  with 
Rip  on  the  mountain.  He  is,  thanks  to 
Irving,  a  good  deal  more  than  a  mere  two- 
legged  peg  to  hang  a  date  on.  And  so 
we,  too,  after  Hudson,  course  up  the 
river  of  his  name,  and  dream  of  it,  while 
sun  or  shower  makes  shifting  lures  of 
light  upon  the  Palisades  and  Highlands 
and  the  summer  storms  reverberate  among 
the  crags  of  the  Catskills,  as  the  river  of 
a  day  when  wild  beasts  roamed  the  woods 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S   SERVICES    259 

and  moccasined  hunters  camped  beside  the 
waters. 

It  is  much  to  be  wished  that  the  move- 
ment which  was  talked  of  last  year  to 
purchase  Sunnyside,  Irving's  historic  home 
on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  and  pre- 
serve it  as  a  literary  landmark,  might  be 
vigorously  pushed  to  success.  Nor  is  it 
the  river's  panorama  alone  that  we  see 
with  the  eye  of  imagination,  optic  revela- 
tion more  magical  than  all  your  kineto- 
scopes  and  vitascopes.  We  behold  New 
York  City  in  the  days  when  the  Bowery 
—  name  that  now  conjures  up  unsavory 
thoughts  of  second-hand  clothing  and  the 
unwashed  of  divers  nations  —  was  a  green 
lane  dotted  with  pleasant  suburban  resi- 
dences, each  with  its  bower.  We  walk 
the  grass-grown  ways  of  Albany,  where 
the  cows  sway  home  at  evenfall  and  duti- 
fully stop  before  the  front  door  for  milk- 
ing, not,  as  the  higher  educated  modern 
cow  might  do,  before  the  town  pump,  for 
purposes  of  dilution.  We  get  charming 
interiors  of  prosperous,  hospitable  Dutch 
country  homes,  which  Irving  drew  with  a  fi- 
delity to  detail  as  if  in  emulation  of  the  man- 
ner of  the  old  Dutch  masters  themselves; 


26o  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

homesteads  nestled  in  a  valley  among  high 
hills  or  perched  upon  some  sightly  eminence 
commanding  a  wide  aerial  sweep  of  blue 
water  and  bluer  mountain  —  the  homely, 
hearty  life  that  teemed  there  and  is  passed 
away  forever,  yet  not  before  our  author 
caught  its  spirit  and  embalmed  it  for  us  in 
his  books.  We  read  with  quickened 
pulses  of  Captain  Kidd  and  his  buried 
treasure,  of  the  storm  ship's  dire  warning 
to  river  navigators;  we  ride  with  Tom 
Walker  and  the  Devil,  and  are  made 
familiar  with  many  another  legend  born 
of  that  unsophisticated  age.  And  let  us 
not  forget  that  the  author  in  saturating 
himself  with  all  this  folk-lore  and  these 
legends  did  yeoman  service  to  history, 
since  they  are  part  of  it,  being  the  facts 
about  the  imagination  of  a  people,  quite 
as  important  as  a  register  of  their  inner 
lives  as  elections  are  of  their  outer  actions. 
Nor  must  we  overlook,  in  thinking  of  the 
study  he  gave  native  themes,  that  he 
wrote  a  book  called  A  T"our  of  the  Prairies , 
based  on  his  own  travels,  and  at  the  time 
by  far  the  best  account  of  Western  wild 
life  in  existence,  but  less  typically  expres- 
sive of  the  man,  because  others  have  done 


WASHINGTON    IRVING'S    SERVICES    261 

so  much  since  in  exploiting  that  region; 
to  mention  one  work,  Parkman's  The 
Oregon  'Trait,  came  not  long  after.  But 
this  represents  Irving's  minor  activity, 
because  his  writings  about  old  New  York 
life  came  not  of  knowledge  gathered  on  a 
tourist's  trip,  but  from  the  affectionate 
intimacy  of  a  lifetime.  He  knew  New 
York  through  and  through,  loved  it, 
and  so  was  at  his  happiest  in  telling 
of  it. 

Nay,  Irving  not  only  in  his  works,  but 
in  his  own  person  and  environment,  adds 
a  richness  to  our  history ;  for  does  not  his 
own  Sunnyside  at  Tarrytown,  the  house 
and  home  he  loved  so  dearly  and  came 
back  to  so  gladly  from  foreign  wander- 
ings, there  to  pass  a  tranquil  and  honored 
old  age,  —  does  not  that  place  lend  a  poetic 
interest  to  the  stream  it  overlooks  and 
helps  to  make  illustrious  ?  Yes,  by  his 
work  and  his  life  Washington  Irving  did 
his  share  in  a  subtle,  but  very  real  and 
deep  sense  in  making  America  historic,  in 
giving  its  past  days  light,  flavor,  reality, 
loveliness.  This  is  the  reason  why  one 
has  a  right  to  claim  that  Irving  performed 
a  service  for  our  history  in  his  work  which 


262  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

is  not  technically  and  formally  included  in 
his  histories  and  biographies. 

But  looking  now  to  his  work  as  a  whole 
and  inclusive  of  the  more  serious  and  sus- 
tained labor  he  put  upon  the  Columbus 
and  other  like  books,  I  remark  that  their 
manner,  their  style  or  literary  quality,  has 
an  attraction  not  always  found  in  even 
great  historians,  but  wheresoever  found  a 
good  thing.  Here  is  the  advantage  of 
having  a  man  of  letters  do  such  work. 
The  result  is  he  is  readable,  has  interest, 
charm ;  and  there  is  no  harm  in  the 
history  writer  giving  pleasure  —  especially 
if  he  have  thoroughness  and  be  consci- 
entious. It  may  even  be  doubted  if  there 
can  be  much  fruitful  stimulation  from 
history  without  this  pleasurable  interest. 
Certainly  it  should  be  furnished  to  young 
people  beginning  the  study.  And  largely 
for  that  reason  Irving  is  a  capital  writer 
for  those  who  want  to  get  a  start,  to 
acquire  an  appetite  for  this  sort  of  food, 
which  as  set  before  you  by  some  histo- 
rians will  stick  in  your  throat,  or  if  swal- 
lowed give  you  an  indigestion.  It  is  a 
puzzle  where  Irving  got  his  literary  touch 
from.  His  folk  were  not  of  that  sort,  his 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S    SERVICES    263 

education  was  desultory  ;  yet  he  has  it  on 
every  page  —  an  easy  elegance,  a  flush 
of  color,  a  music  of  ordered  sentences. 
The  style  strikes  us  to-day  as  a  bit  old- 
fashioned,  perhaps  as  rather  rhetorical ; 
but  then  so  will  our  style  strike  a  critic 
half  a  century  or  more  hence  in  the  same 
way,  as  likely  as  not.  Professor  Beers, 
of  Yale,  quotes  this  passage  and  remarks 
that  we  read  it  with  a  "  certain  impatience  ": 

"  As  the  vine,  which  has  long  twined 
its  graceful  foliage  about  the  oak  and  been 
lifted  by  it  into  sunshine,  will,  when  the 
hardy  plant  is  rifted  by  the  thunderbolt, 
cling  round  it  with  its  caressing  tendrils 
and  bind  up  its  shattered  boughs,  so  is  it 
beautifully  ordered  by  Providence  that 
woman,  who  is  the  mere  dependent  and 
ornament  of  man  in  his  happier  hours, 
should  be  his  stay  and  solace  when  smitten 
with  sudden  calamity,  winding  herself  into 
the  rugged  recesses  of  his  nature,  tenderly 
supporting  the  drooping  head,  and  bind- 
ing up  the  broken  heart." 

Well,  that  smacks  of  the  Latin  in  con- 
struction, is  somewhat  ponderous,  be  it 
confessed,  and  deliciously  antiquated  in  its 
conception  of  the  fair  sex.  Irving,  a  gen- 


264  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

tleman  of  the  old  school,  a  bachelor  with 
a  soft  spot  under  his  waistcoat  for  pretty 
and  good  and  gracious  ladies,  knew  noth- 
ing about  the  New  Woman  —  and  we 
must  not  blame  him  for  that ;  it  was  his 
misfortune,  not  his  fault.  And,  again, 
this  selection  is  not  typical  of  him ;  it 
shows  old-fashioned  qualities  in  excess  of 
his  habit.  It  were  fairer  to  take  a  passage 
like  the  following,  which  is  normal  in  its 
quiet  felicity: 

"About  six  miles  from  the  renowned 
city  of  the  Manhattoes,  in  that  sound  or 
arm  of  the  sea  which  passes  between  the 
mainland  and  Nassau,  or  Long  Island, 
there  is  a  narrow  strait,  where  the  current 
is  violently  compressed  between  shoulder- 
ing promontories  and  horribly  perplexed 
by  rocks  and  shoals.  Being,  at  the  best 
of  times,  a  very  violent,  impetuous  cur- 
rent, it  takes  these  impediments  in  mighty 
dudgeon,  boiling  in  whirlpools,  brawling 
and  fretting  in  ripples,  raging  and  roaring 
in  rapids  and  breakers,  and,  in  short,  in- 
dulging in  all  kinds  of  wrong-headed 
paroxysms.  At  such  times,  woe  to  any 
unlucky  vessel  that  ventures  within  its 
clutches.  This  termagant  humor,  how- 


WASHINGTON    IRVING'S    SERVICES    265 

ever,  prevails  only  at  certain  times  of  tide. 
At  low  water,  for  instance,  it  is  as  pacific 
a  stream  as  you  would  wish  to  see ;  but 
as  the  tide  rises,  it  begins  to  fret ;  at  half- 
tide,  it  roars  with  might  and  main,  like  a 
bull  bellowing  for  more  drink ;  but  when 
the  tide  is  full,  it  relapses  into  quiet  and, 
for  a  time,  sleeps  as  soundly  as  an  alder- 
man after  dinner.  In  fact,  it  may  be  com- 
pared to  a  quarrelsome  toper,  who  is  a 
peaceable  fellow  enough  when  he  has  no 
liquor  at  all  or  when  he  has  a  skinfull,  but 
who  when  half  seas  over  plays  the  very 
devil.  This  mighty,  blustering,  bullying, 
hard-drinking  little  strait  was  a  place  of 
great  danger  and  perplexity  to  the  Dutch 
navigators  of  ancient  days  —  hectoring 
their  tub-built  barks  in  a  most  unruly 
style,  whirling  them  about  in  a  manner  to 
make  any  but  a  Dutchman  giddy,  and  not 
unfrequently  stranding  them  upon  rocks 
and  reefs,  as  it  did  the  famous  squadron  of 
Oloffe  the  Dreamer  when  seeking  a  place 
to  found  the  city  of  Manhattoes.  Where- 
upon, out  of  sheer  spleen,  they  denomi- 
nated it  Helle-gat,  and  solemnly  gave  it 
over  to  the  devil.  This  appellation  has 
since  been  aptly  rendered  into  English  by 


266  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

the  name  of  Hell-gate  and  into  nonsense 
by  the  name  of  Hurlgate,  according  to 
certain  foreign  intruders,  who  neither 
understood  Dutch  nor  English  —  may  St. 
Nicholas  confound  them !  " 

His  manner  of  writing  as  a  whole,  in  its 
unobtrusive  breeding  and  beauty,  is  admir- 
able, and  may  well  be  put  before  us  as 
a  model  of  the  kind  of  effect  it  aims  for. 
It  is  especially  valuable  at  the  present 
time  for  its  lack  of  strain,  its  avoidance  of 
violence  or  bizarre  effects,  when  our  later 
writers  incline  to  hunt  for  startling  words 
and  queer  constructions ;  anything  to  ex- 
cite and  seem  "  original."  Irving's  style 
impresses  one  as  a  whole,  rather  than  in 
particulars,  —  and  that  is  the  higher  art. 

For  another  thing  —  Irving  makes  his 
work  vivid  by  his  realization  of  scene  and 
character,  which  is,  I  should  suppose,  a 
literary  characteristic.  We  have  already 
seen  how  he  did  this  in  handling  native 
material,  old  New  York  life,  the  Hudson 
river,  and  so  forth.  All  his  work  illus- 
trates the  quality.  And  with  it  goes 
what  may  be  called  true  idealism  in  the 
treatment  of  events  and  men ;  by  which  I 
do  not  mean  falsifying  facts,  but  a  broad 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S    SERVICES    267 

comprehension  of  the  main  idea  in  an 
historical  act  or  personage.  Take  Colum- 
bus :  The  danger  of  conceiving  him  is  that 
he  become  to  us  a  mere  figurehead,  a 
fleshless  embodiment  of  the  abstract  no- 
tion of  discovery.  Every  great  man  in 
the  past  runs  this  risk.  It  is  the  same 
with  George  Washington  :  he  is  a  hack- 
neyed pattern-plate  to  the  school-boy, 
or  was  until  latter-day  historians  like 
McMaster  began  to  insist  on  turning  our 
attention  away  from  the  cherry-tree  and 
toward  a  flesh-and-blood  Virginia  gentle- 
man, great,  but  having  like  passions  with 
ourselves.  Compare  the  estimates  of 
Washington  by  Bancroft  and  McMaster, 
if  you  would  see  the  difference,  and  then 
realize  that  it  is  only  the  latter  portrait 
(the  one  making  the  Father  of  his  Country 
alive)  which  you  can  warm  up  to  and  love. 
Now,  if  you  will  read  Irving's  final  chapter 
in  his  Columbus,  where  he  sums  up  the 
Italian's  character,  you  will  find  it  impos- 
sible not  to  be  fired  by  the  sketch ;  it  is 
vital ;  the  explorer  is  revealed  as  a  splen- 
did figure,  food  for  poetry,  romance, 
idealization,  yet  not  faultless,  not  a  pale, 
mysterious  piece  of  perfection.  In  a  word, 


268  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Irving's  method  is  that  of  sympathy,  of 
love,  of  the  historic  imagination.  That  is 
why  Mark  Twain  has  in  his  Joan  of  Arc^ 
with  whatever  anachronisms  and  lapses 
from  the  pattern,  done  something  for  the 
historical  study  of  the  Maid  —  because  he 
is  stimulated  in  imagination  by  her,  sees 
her,  loves  her,  realizes  her  greatness,  and 
makes  us  feel  it.  Whoever  does  this  per- 
forms a  high  function  for  history;  and 
beyond  all  peradventure  Washington  Irv- 
ing had  this  virtue  in  his  Columbus  and 
elsewhere. 

In  newspaper  life  we  speak  of  the  re- 
porter's city  article  about  a  murder  or  a 
fire  or  a  Christian  Endeavor  meeting  — 
no  matter  what  the  subject — as  a  "story." 
That  is  the  technical  word  to  describe  his 
work.  It  is  significant.  It  implies  the 
feeling  that  his  report  must  first  of  all 
have  graphic  power,  be  picturesque,  dra- 
matic ;  that  is,  story-like,  showing  life  in 
small,  being  an  epitome  of  the  human 
play,  in  some  phase  of  it.  The  news- 
paper men  know  that  the  public  wants 
news  in  this  shape  —  piquant,  warm,  sen- 
sational ;  and  so  the  best  reporter  is  he 
who  can  tell  the  best  story,  without  de- 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S    SERVICES    269 

parting  from  the  facts.  Sometimes  and  on 
some  papers,  I  regret  to  say,  the  journalist, 
in  the  strain  after  this  taking  dramatic 
interest,  tells  a  story  in  a  double  sense,  and 
so  journalism  is  brought  into  disrepute. 
Now,  Irving,  among  historians,  has  the 
story-telling  gift,  in  a  good  sense.  Mr. 
Warner  has  pointed  out  that  Washington 
Irving  introduced  the  short  story  into  Eng- 
lish ;  and  this  talent  for  narration  in  brief 
he  carries  over  into  his  long  and  serious 
historical  compositions.  This  comes  from 
his  interest  in  personalities  and  his  sense 
of  the  picturesque  and  dramatic  —  that 
talent  which  I  hope  I  do  not  belittle  in 
calling  journalistic,  for  in  its  purity  it  is 
legitimate  and  valuable.  I  am  willing  to 
grant  that  sometimes  this  tendency  led 
Irving  into  danger.  For  example,  in  his 
Conquest  of  Granada,  a  book  where 
his  literary  power  is  at  its  best,  he  puts 
descriptions  of  bona  fide  events  into  the 
mouth  of  a  fictitious  cavalier  chronicler, 
mingling  fact  and  fancy  in  such  a  way  as 
to  give  the  reader  a  sense  of  unsure  foot- 
ing. This  certainly  cannot  be  defended 
as  a  method.  Yet  it  is  very  sure  that 
this  history  gets  its  color  and  movement 


270  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

and  picture  quality  in  large  measure  from 
the  author's  ability  to  tell  a  story,  for 
history  is  full  of  stories  to  tell,  if  the 
historian  but  sees  them  and  can  put  them 
before  us. 

Still  another  quality  which  goes  to  make 
Irving  pleasant  as  well  as  profitable  read- 
ing, and  which  we  may  call  character- 
istic of  the  literary  man  rather  than  of  the 
historian,  is  his  humor.  This  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  Knickerbocker  History  and 
lightsome  sketches  like  'The  Legend  of 
Sleepy  Hollow,  but  plays  like  heat 
lightning  about  the  graver  books,  with  a 
gentle  lambency  which  makes  them  dis- 
tinctlier  remembered  and  longer  enjoyed. 
Take  the  same  Conquest  of  Granada,  and 
hear  the  closing  paragraph : 

"  Thus  terminated  the  war  of  Granada, 
after  ten  years  of  incessant  fighting,  equal- 
ling (says  Fray  Antonio  Agapida)  the  far- 
famed  siege  of  Troy  in  duration,  and 
ending  like  that  in  the  capture  of  the  city. 
Thus  ended  also  the  dominion  of  the 
Moors  in  Spain,  having  endured  778 
years,  from  the  memorable  defeat  of 
Roderick,  the  last  of  the  Goths,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Guadalete.  The  authentic 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S   SERVICES    271 

Agapida  is  uncommonly  particular  in  fixing 
the  epoch  of  this  event.  This  great  triumph 
of  our  holy  Catholic  faith,  according  to  his 
computation,  took  place  in  the  beginning 
of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1492, 
being  3,655  years  from  the  population  or 
Spain  by  the  Patriarch  Tubal,  3,797  from 
the  general  deluge,  5,453  from  the  creation 
of  the  world,  according  to  Hebrew  calcu- 
lation, and  in  the  month  of  Rabic,  in  the 
897th  year  of  the  Hegira,  or  flight  of 
Mahomet,  —  whom  may  God  confound ! 
saith  the  pious  Agapida  !  " 

With  this  facetious  marshalling  of  du- 
bious dates  does  Irving,  in  a  mood  of 
cheer  perhaps  begotten  of  the  fact  that 
his  work  was  finished,  take  leave  of  the 
reader;  and  the  mood  is  not  unique  by 
any  means.  The  Muse  of  History  is 
represented  as  a  grave  maiden ;  it  would 
be  incongruous  to  fancy  her  sitting  with 
backward-gazing  eye,  cracking  jokes  on 
by-gone  worthies.  Nevertheless,  a  judi- 
cious admixture  of  humor  in  history  books 
now  and  then  does  have  the  effect  of  an 
oasis  in  the  desert  and  draws  us  in  the  way 
of  affection  towards  the  author  indulging  in 
it.  It  is  this,  along  with  other  excellences, 


272  LITERARY  LIKINGS 

which  makes  Carlyle  and  Froude  among 
the  most  stimulating,  if  not  the  most  re- 
liable, of  historians. 

One  other  quality  fairly  to  be  called 
literary  I  must  mention  —  the  sense  of 
proportion.  Irving  knows  how  to  select 
and  to  arrange  his  material,  and  this  se- 
lective instinct  gives  to  the  result  artistic 
proportion.  This  is  one  of  the  cardinal 
virtues  in  all  good  literature,  in  poem, 
story,  drama,  biography,  history.  It  is 
commonly  said  that  it  is  as  important  to 
know  what  to  leave  out  as  what  to  put  in. 
To  tell  all  we  know  in  literature  is  as 
foolish  as  it  is  in  life.  That  is  just  the 
difference  between  art  and  raw  facts  as 
presented  to  the  artist;  from  a  mass  of 
material  he  must  choose,  sift,  arrange,  and 
"  compose "  his  picture,  in  the  painter's 
term.  It  might  seem  that  in  history, 
which  deals  primarily  with  facts,  with 
things  that  happened,  there  is  not  this 
same  need  of  selection  and  suppression. 
But  there  is,  because  events  are  of  very 
unequal  importance;  and  to  spread  out 
everything,  without  light  and  shade  or 
any  indication  of  relative  values,  is  unin- 
spired, not  to  say  asinine. 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S   SERVICES    273 

In  a  most  discerning  paper  on  the  pres- 
entation of  truth  in  history,  Prof.  Wood- 
row  Wilson  remarks  that  "  the  facts  do  not 
of  themselves  constitute  the  truth.  The 
truth  is  abstract,  not  concrete.  It  is  the 
just  idea,  the  right  revelation  of  what 
things  mean.  It  is  evoked  only  by  such 
arrangements  and  orderings  of  facts  as 
suggest  interpretations." 

Here  is  a  test  of  the  good  historian  ; 
and  I  think  we  may  claim  for  Irving  that, 
being,  as  I  said  in  the  beginning,  a  liter- 
ary man  preeminently,  an  artist  above  all 
else,  he  so  disposes  his  subject-matter  as  to 
make  an  harmonious  picture,  duly  propor- 
tioned and  right  in  its  perspective.  Things 
that  belong  in  footnotes  he  puts  in  foot- 
notes, and  he  does  not  load  you  down  with 
unnecessary  details.  I  may  add  (confiden- 
tially) that  some  books  which  you  find 
heavy,  slow  reading,  and  get  discouraged 
over,  are  not  heavy  because  they  are  learned 
(learning  is  right  and  necessary  to  them), 
but  just  because  they  are  stupid  in  this 
particular,  the  writer  unimaginatively  pour- 
ing out  upon  you  an  undigested  mass  of 
items  and  particulars  which,  unless  bound 
into  a  symmetrical  bundle  and  lightened 


274  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

by  the  throwing  away  of  useless  impedi- 
menta^ would  break  the  back  of  an  Atlas. 
Professor  Wilson,  in  the  same  essay,  more 
than  hints  that  this  paralysis  of  the  sense 
of  proportion  is  a  characteristic  of  the 
modern  school  of  historians.  There  is  no 
gift  more  necessary  to  the  historian  than 
this  of  selection,  of  proportion.  Nobody 
is  likely  to  dispute  the  statement  that 
Irving  had  it. 

The  books,  then,  which  one  would  natu- 
rally read  in  order  to  appreciate  Irving's 
service  to  American  history,  and  in  which 
these  traits  are  to  be  found,  are,  first  of 
all,  those  dealing  with  what  is  called  Knick- 
erbocker history,  the  story  of  the  Dutch 
occupation  of  New  York  and  sundry  es- 
says and  legends  in  The  Sketch  Book,  Tales 
of  a  Traveller,  and  Eracebridge  Hall,  treat- 
ing phases  of  this  life.  Then,  having  got 
inoculated  with  the  author,  it  would  be 
well  to  take  the  Columbus  biography,  fol- 
lowing it  with  that  of  Washington.  Next, 
leaving  the  subject-matter  having  to  do  in 
one  way  or  the  other  with  our  own  coun- 
try, rich  pleasure  and  stimulation  will  be 
got  out  of  the  Spanish  group  :  The  Alham- 
bra,  which  will  be  found  an  Arabian  Nights 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S    SERVICES    275 

entertainment,  the  Conquest  of  Granada, 
and  Legends  of  the  Conquest  of  Spain.  And 
of  several  biographies  still  unindicated, 
nobody  will  ever  regret  reading  the  de- 
lightfully sympathetic,  happy  life  of  Gold- 
smith, a  writer  between  whom  and  Irving 
there  are  some  marks  of  resemblance. 
But  if  one  never  gets  any  further,  one 
should  absorb  the  Knickerbocker  books, 
thus  getting  a  clear  notion  of  the  unique 
thing  their  maker  did  in  creating  them. 
Glancing  now  at  the  points  made,  we  may 
claim  for  Washington  Irving,  in  sundry  not 
unimportant  matters,  qualifications  of  value 
to  the  writer  in  general,  and  to  historians  in 
particular :  a  pleasing  form,  the  story-tell- 
ing power,  historic  imagination,  humor, 
and  the  sense  of  proportion.  He  brought 
these  literary  gifts  to  the  study  and  writing 
of  history,  and  furnished  an  object-lesson 
in  their  use.  Yet  when  the  claim  has 
been  made  without  fear  of  contradiction,  we 
must  concede  at  once  and  frankly  that  our 
author,  judged  purely  as  historian,  is  not 
in  the  same  class  as  others  whose  names 
suggest  preeminently  the  writing  of  for- 
mal histories.  His  service  to  American 
history,  as  I  have  tried  to  indicate,  was 


276  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

distinct  and  large ;  yet,  to  return  to  the 
key-note  of  the  theme,  Irving  was  not  pri- 
marily the  writer  of  history,  but  the  man 
of  letters  :  he  chose  historical  subjects  not 
so  much  because  he  felt  the  desire  to  por- 
tray man's  historic  unfolding  as  because  he 
felt  that  here  was  picturesque  material  and 
material  affording  opportunity  for  serious, 
sustained  work  where  hitherto,  in  sketch 
and  mock-history,  he  had  been  at  play 
rather  than  at  work.  But  by  the  judgment 
of  posterity,  those  light  things  he  did  have 
risen  to  the  surface  and  continue  to  float ; 
they  represent  that  by  which  he  will  long- 
est be  known  and  loved.  Hence  his  place 
in  our  literature  is  as  secure  as  that  of 
any  writer ;  and  especial  honors  are  his 
because  he  was  a  pioneer.  Hence,  too, 
his  contribution  to  history  was  indirect, 
secondary  to  his  contribution  to  belles 
lettres.  The  very  fact  that  his  leading 
qualities  are  sentiment  and  humor  (as  his 
best  critics  decide)  would  make  this  inevi- 
table ;  for  sentiment  and  humor,  though 
valuable,  are  not  the  first  requisites  of  the 
history  writer.  But  these  considerations 
need  not  belittle  Irving's  right  to  be  stud- 
ied and  lauded  in  a  review  of  the  Ameri- 


WASHINGTON   IRVING'S    SERVICES    277 

can  historians.  If  not  one  of  the  great, 
he  is  one  of  the  most  winning  and  sugges- 
tive, figures  in  the  group  ;  an  artist,  where 
art  is  often  lacking  ;  a  genial  lover  of  his 
kind,  where  cold  impersonality  is  a  danger; 
a  weaver  of  romance  and  the  magic  of  the 
imagination  over  the  early  days  and  doings 
of  his  own  people,  who  have  been  not 
seldom  depicted  in  the  rawness  and  harsh 
realities  of  their  actual  conditions.  Would 
that  all  historians  had,  like  him,  illustrated 
in  their  works  the  use  and  value  of  the 
literary  touch  and  the  creative  mind. 


Battle  Laureate :    Henry  Howard 
Brownell 


A  BATTLE  LAUREATE :  HENRY 
HOWARD    BROWNELL 

¥ 

i 

HEINE  has  said  in  his  beautiful  way 
that  the  lyric  poet,  like  the  nightin- 
gale, never  grows  old,  but  sings  as  surely 
as  the  spring  returns.  In  a  sense  this  is 
true,  yet  it  is  also  true  that  the  note  of 
poetry,  whether  lyric  or  other,  is  heard  with 
peculiar  sympathy  at  the  occasion  of  its 
birth,  and  sounds  less  sweet  with  the  pass- 
ing of  the  years,  the  incoming  of  other 
interests  and  fashions.  While  great  liter- 
ature knows  no  time  nor  country,  each 
age  needs  and  gets  its  representative  songs 
and  stories,  the  new  crowding  out  the  old. 
"  The  experience  of  each  new  age,"  says 
Emerson,  "  requires  a  new  confession,  and 
the  world  seems  always  waiting  for  its  poet." 
Especially  is  this  so  when  the  song  is  in- 
spired by  some  event  like  our  Civil  War. 
That  great  conflict  begot  some  notable 


282  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

American  literature,  though  less  than  so 
gigantic  a  cataclysm,  so  legitimate  and 
home-made  a  motif ^  so  high-principled  a 
cause,  might  be  expected  to  bring  forth. 
Yet  what  was  born  of  it  falls  to-day  on 
less  responsive  ears.  Only  the  very 
greatest  poetry  is  independent  of  time- 
values  and  of  local  justification. 

Hence  it  happens  that  the  verse  of  a 
Connecticut  singer,  Henry  Howard 
Brownell,  not  yet  a  quarter  century  dead, 
is  seldom  heard  upon  the  mouths  of  men, 
albeit  more  genuine  song  in  its  kind  was 
not  written  in  the  red  years  of  1861—65, 
nor  perhaps  did  any  thrill  the  popular 
heart  more  electrically  at  the  moment. 
His  slender  volume  of  War  Lyrics  in  its 
faded  cover,  taken  down  from  the  dim 
shelf  where  it  is  gathering  that  dust  which 
alike  for  books  and  men  chokes  their  most 
resounding  deeds,  greets  the  eye  half 
reproachfully,  as  if  in  comment  on  the 
changeful  humors  of  the  world.  Yet  is 
this  he  whom  Dr.  Holmes  called  "  our 
battle  laureate,"  and  who  at  this  later  day, 
and  judged  by  his  contribution  to  art, 
surely  deserves  a  place  among  the  native 
poets  who  hymned  the  shame,  the  pathos, 


A   BATTLE   LAUREATE  283 

the    terror   and    the    glory    of  the    Great 
Conflict. 

Brownell  was '  born  in  Providence, 
R.I.,  but  moved  at  such  an  early  age 
to  East  Hartford,  the  village  lying  on 
the  eastern  shore  of  the  Connecticut  op- 
posite Hartford,  that  he  may  be  claimed 
fairly  by  the  State  which  takes  its  name 
from  that  beautiful  and  storied  New  Eng- 
land stream.  Hartford  folk  are  wont  to 
regard  him  as  their  own,  like  New  Yorkers 
in  the  case  of  George  William  Curtis, 
though  he,  too,  first  saw  the  light  in  Prov- 
idence. Brownell's  stock  was  of  the  best 
New  England  can  show.  His  father  was 
a  most  respected  physician,  his  mother  a 
De  Wolfe  of  Rhode  Island,  a  woman  of 
culture  and  breeding,  while  the  name 
of  his  uncle,  Bishop  Brownell,  is  honor- 
ably associated  with  Trinity  College,  the 
poet's  Alma  Mater.  After  being  graduated, 
he  taught  school  for  a  year  in  Mobile, 
Ala.,  and  then  returned  to  Hartford  and 
engaged  in  the  study  of  law.  But  he 
belonged  to  that  goodly  company  of  men 
who,  having  the  instinct  for  letters,  are 
really  unfaithful  to  the  Green  Bag  —  it  was 
a  profession  which  he  never  followed  with 


284  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

much  steadiness  or  zest.  Delicate  of 
health,  possessed  of  means  enough  to  make 
him  independent  of  the  res  angusta  domi,  his 
life  became  chiefly  one  of  quiet  study  and 
leisurely  travel.  The  verse  he  wrote  prior 
to  the  war  is  a  reflex  of  such  tastes  and 
environment.  But  with  the  firing  on 
Fort  Sumter  came  an  electric  change  in  his 
life  and  hence  in  his  song.  The  poem 
General  Orders,  a  rhymed  version  of 
Farragut's  orders  to  the  fleet,  drew  the 
Admiral's  attention,  and  put  him  in  corre- 
spondence with  the  writer.  Mr.  Brownell 
confessing  he  should  like  to  witness  a  sea 
engagement,  Farragut  appointed  him  act- 
ing ensign  on  his  own  ship,  the  Hartford, 
and  made  him  his  private  secretary.  The 
bard  of  battle  was  thus  placed  in  an  excep- 
tional position  for  the  truthful  limning 
of  what  he  beheld.  Here  was  a  "  sea 
change  "  indeed  !  —  from  the  scholarly, 
almost  recluse  life  in  the  suburban  hamlet 
to  the  awful  scenic  tragedy  of  naval  war- 
fare. 

He  was  in  several  of  the  notable  later 
encounters  which  made  Farragut's  a  name 
to  conjure  with  —  among  others,  that 
Bay  Fight  which  evoked  one  of  his  most 


A    BATTLE   LAUREATE  285 

ringing  and  unforgetable  fulminations. 
Half  a  score  of  his  finest  things  were 
written  on  and  dated  from  the  Hartford^ 
giving  one  a  sharp  sense  of  their  reality 
and  urgence.  Here  was  no  student's  echo 
of  the  strife,  but  the  clash  and  flash  of 
war  itself,  writ  red  in  blood  and  booming 
with  big  guns  and  the  cry  of  victor  or 
vanquished  ;  while  as  a  setting  to  the  stern 
picture,  nay,  interfused  with  the  human 
action,  is  the  swash  and  swell  of  the  mighty 
and  many-mooded  ocean,  her  whims  re- 
spondent to  the  alternate  calm  and  plan- 
gent stress  of  civil  strife. 

Beholding  Brownell  at  this  juncture, 
one  thinks  of  Beranger,  now  in  prison, 
now  on  the  Paris  streets  hobnobbing  with 
the  republican  leaders,  while  his  fiery  songs 
stir  up  the  insurgent  mob  ;  or  of  Korner 
pouring  out  "  Vater,  Ich  rufe  dich  "  and 
those  other  lyrics  which  are  watchwords  to 
the  German  heart,  as  he  died  upon  a  bat- 
tle-field of  the  War  of  Liberation.  The 
song  work  of  such  men  offers  startling, 
beautiful  witness  to  the  close  comradeship 
of  life  and  literature.  As  Dr.  Holmes 
has  it,  the  poems  so  written  "  are  to  draw- 
ing-room battle  poems  as  the  torn  flags  of 


286  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

our  victorious  fleets  to  the  stately  ensigns 
that  dressed  those  fleets  while  in  harbor." 
After  the  peace  was  won,  the  war- 
knit  friendship  between  the  Admiral  and 
Brownell  led  to  the  latter's  being  recom- 
missioned,  and  as  a  member  of  the  staff" 
accompanying  the  great  naval  officer  on 
his  European  trip.  He  met  in  this  way 
the  dignitaries  of  the  earth,  and  had  ex- 
periences which,  with  some  men,  would 
have  found  artistic  expression  in  poetry 
or  other  literary  form.  Not  so  with  this 
singer.  His  was  the  uncompromising 
love  of  liberty,  the  shy  New  England 
aloofness,  and  he  carried  his  convictions 
with  him,  refusing  on  one  occasion,  it  is 
said,  an  introduction  to  Louis  Napoleon 
and  the  Sultan  of  Turkey.  His  chief 
inspiration,  the  real  cause  for  singing,  was 
over ;  and  on  his  return  to  his  native 
shores,  he  was  for  the  few  remaining 
years  mostly  silent  —  one  or  two  poems 
of  occasion,  notably  that  at  the  reunion  of 
Army  and  Navy  at  Newport  in  1871,  when 
he  eulogized  Farragut  in  commemorative 
verse,  being  the  exception.  His  life  there- 
after was  one  of  dignified,  scholarly  retire- 
ment ;  he  was  a  much-respected,  unob- 


A    BATTLE   LAUREATE  287 

trusive  figure,  persona  grata  in  Hartford's 
social  circles  whensoever  he  saw  fit  to  cross 
the  river  and  mingle  among  his  friends  and 
kinsmen.  A  confirmed  bachelor,  he  resided 
with  his  mother  at  the  family  home.  In 
1871  cancer  of  the  cheek  developed,  and 
after  more  than  a  year  of  intense  suffer- 
ing, borne  as  befitted  one  whose  coolness 
under  fire  had  been  commented  upon  by 
his  fellows  aboard  the  Hartford,  the  final 
release  came,  and  in  his  fifty-third  year 
Henry  Howard  Brownell  had  fought  his 
last  fight.  He  lies  in  the  East  Hartford 
cemetery,  and  has  the  Connecticut  in 
sight,  in  times  of  freshet  almost  within 
hearing.  The  Admiral  could  not  be  at 
his  funeral,  having  preceded  him  ;  but 
Mrs.  Farragut  and  her  son  were  there, 
and  their  flowers  sweetened  the  place  and 
ceremony.  The  Brownell  homestead,  by 
one  of  those  unpicturesque  lapses  of  fate,  is 
at  present  the  hotel  of  the  village. 

Among  the  portraits  of  worthies  which 
adorn  the  walls  of  the  editorial  rooms  of 
the  Hartford  Courant  is  a  half-length  of 
Brownell  in  uniform,  an  excellent  like- 
ness, and  one  seldom  seen.  It  presents 
the  poet  in  middle  age  —  a  refined,  strong, 


288  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

grave  face,  bearded  to  the  lips,  with  fine 
brow  and  a  head  whose  thinning  hair 
brings  out  the  clearer  the  marked  devel- 
opment in  the  region  of  the  perceptive 
faculties.  Brownell  was  of  middle  stature 
and  spare  habit,  well  built  and  of  a  digni- 
fied, graceful  carriage ;  the  whole  personal 
impression  of  him  was,  by  all  accounts, 
one  of  quiet  power,  of  courteous,  self- 
respecting  manhood.  Unconventional, 
even  careless  in  his  dress,  shunning  public 
occasions,  he  was  not  a  showy  man,  but 
was  of  the  sort  who  stand  well  the  test  of 
close  acquaintance. 

In  spite  of  his  retired  and  simple  life 
after  the  war,  I  find  myself  thinking  of 
him  first  of  all  as  a  naval  officer,  a  chanter 
of  battles.  In  the  picture  gallery  of  the 
Wadsworth  Athenaeum  at  Hartford  there 
hangs  a  large  and  spirited  canvas  by 
William  H.  Overend,  the  English  ar- 
tist, depicting  the  engagement  at  Mobile 
between  the  Hartford  and  the  Tennessee. 
On  the  hurricane  deck  are  grouped  the 
officers  of  the  former  ship,  all  of  them 
good  portraits.  Farragut,  an  heroic  fig- 
ure, is  in  the  rigging  hard  by,  and  near 
him  stands  Brownell,  leaning  eagerly  for- 


A   BATTLE   LAUREATE  289 

ward  as  he  watches  the  fight,  and  fully 
exposed  to  the  storm  of  shot  and  shell, 
holding  in  one  hand  a  piece  of  paper  — 
perhaps  the  notes  for  The  Bay  Ftght^ 
some  stanzas  of  which  were  actually  writ- 
ten on  the  spot.  It  is  in  such  a  setting 
that  this  man  is  fitliest  remembered. 

II 

Brownell's  verse  in  the  main  originated 
as  "  newspaper  poetry  "  —  a  fact  sug- 
gesting the  remark  that  not  a  little  Am- 
erican literature  has  had  a  like  democratic 
birth.  In  the  columns  of  the  Hartford 
Courant  and  other  Connecticut  sheets  ap- 
peared some  of  his  most  brilliant  work. 
It  was  gathered  into  books,  too ;  for 
Brownell  published  in  all  four  volumes  of 
verse  in  the  course  of  the  twenty  years 
between  1847  anc^  J866;  but  his  distinc- 
tive work,  that  upon  which  his  fame  must 
rest,  is  to  be  found  in  the  War  Lyrics^ 
which  appeared  one  year  after  the  close 
of  the  Rebellion.  This  contains  the  best 
of  his  earlier  verse  and  that  inspired 
directly  by  the  events  of  the  war  —  the 
lyrics  and  ode-like  narratives  written  hot 
from  the  heart,  currente  calamo,  amidst  the 


290  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

scenes  they  picture.  Their  very  lack  of 
polish,  their  artistic  imperfections,  testify 
not  more  to  this  genesis  than  does  their 
potency  of  inspiration.  The  previous 
volumes,  while  denoting  the  culture  of 
their  maker,  his  graceful  gift  of  rhyme 
and  measure  and  his  literary  tastes,  can- 
not be  called  markedly  individual. 
Had  Brownell  done  no  more  he  would 
have  furnished  some  pleasant  enough 
reading  for  a  day  less  critical  than  our 
own,  but  made  small  claim  upon  one  who 
seeks  to  estimate  American  poetry  of  per- 
manent interest.  One  feels  in  his  ante- 
bellum song  the  influence  of  Bryant  and 
Poe,  of  Whittier  and  Longfellow,  and 
finds  little  else ;  his  writing  is  imitative  in 
manner  and  slight  in  substance.  But  in 
the  War  Lyrics  (a  few  pieces  from  which 
were  to  be  found  in  the  Lyrics  of  a  Day, 
dating  two  years  before)  are  some  twenty 
poems  which  may  be  characterized  as  car- 
mina  bellorum^  veritable  children  of  the  war, 
presenting  this  singer's  authentic  contribu- 
tion to  his  art  and  to  his  country.  The 
balance  of  this  final  book,  although  con- 
taining several  striking  and  artistic  things, 
can  be  overlooked  in  the  far  greater  sig- 


A   BATTLE   LAUREATE  291 

nificance  and  worth  of  the  work  born  of 
a  deeper  impulse.  The  characteristics 
that  mark  the  finest  of  it  —  such  poems 
as  The  Bay  Fight,  Annus  Memorability 
Down,  and  T'he  Battle  Summers  —  are  vivid 
descriptions,  a  felicitous  diction  often 
rising  to  genuine  beauty,  even  grandeur, 
and  the  born  balladist's  breathless  rush  of 
incident. 

In  fact,  to  call  Brownell  a  lyric  poet 
without  qualification  is  misleading.  He 
was  above  all  else  a  writer  of  ballads,  who 
believed  in  his  theme,  had  a  story  to  tell, 
and  sang  because  emotionally  vibrant. 
The  ethical  quality  is  strong,  and  the 
poetry  is  frankly,  bitterly  partisan :  he 
saw  no  good  in  the  foe,  and  such  epithets 
as  "the  black  flag"  and  "traitor  sword" 
are  hurled  like  hammers  of  Thor  at  his 
devoted  head.  Yet  he  has  a  true  soldier's 
sense  of  bravery  even  in  an  evil  cause. 

"  The  sheen  of  its  ill  renown, 

All  tarnished  with  guilt  and  shame, 

No  poet  indeed  may  crown, 
No  lay  may  laurel  a  name," 

he  sings,  but  adds  : 


292  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"  Yet  never  for  thee,  fair  song, 

The  fallen  brave  to  condemn  ; 
They  died  for  a  mighty  wrong, 

But  their  Demon  died  with  them." 

One  hardly  looks  for  the  judicial  tone, 
eminently  proper  to  the  historian  now, 
in  a  man  making  poems  on  the  flag-ship 
before  the  blood  of  the  beloved  has  been 
washed  from  the  decks.  Brownell's  bias 
(to  give  it  the  word  cool  analysis  suggests 
to-day)  helped  rather  than  harmed  the 
quality  of  his  verse.  Poetry  is  of  the 
heart,  not  the  head,  and  the  singer,  like 
the  reformer,  must  see  but  the  side  he 
champions  and  hymns. 

There  is  in  Brownell's  work,  again,  a 
keen  sense  of  the  rough-and-ready  camar- 
aderie of  the  bivouac  and  the  forecastle, 
showing  at  times  in  a  grim  humor,  but 
oftener  (since  he  was  so  dead  in  earnest) 
in  the  realistic,  homely  phrase,  the  strong 
Saxon  speech  of  him,  the  unconventional 
rhymes  and  irregular  stanzas,  the  drastic 
touches  which  a  nicer,  more  self-conscious 
muse  had  not  allowed  herself.  Here 
Brownell  becomes  unliterary  in  that  he  is 
direct,  careless,  and  natural,  not  reflective. 
This  is  not  to  gainsay  that  his  poetry 


A    BATTLE    LAUREATE 


293 


would  have  gained  by  condensation.  It 
is  diffuse  not  seldom,  just  as  Whittier's  is  ; 
the  critic  can  put  finger  on  stanzas  much 
below  the  poet's  standard,  and  occasionally 
quite  unworthy  of  him.  Yet  it  may  be 
that  the  impression  of  vital  reality  would 
have  suffered  had  excision  and  trimming 
taken  place. 

There  are  near  to  ninety  stanzas  in 
The  Bay  Fight,  and  the  idea  of  unity  and 
force  would  have  been  better  conserved 
doubtless  were  the  song-story  briefer  ;  as 
in  the  physical  world,  heat  and  light  must 
have  followed  compression.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  reading  that  production,  the 
thought  is  so  organically  related,  and  the 
feeling  so  cumulatively  strong  and  unin- 
termittent,  that  it  is  puzzling  to  say  just 
where  pruning  were  well. 

We  may  look  in  detail  at  'The  Bay 
Fight  as  one  of  the  poet's  representative 
longer  pieces  ;  it  opens  the  volume,  and  is 
deemed  his  most  popular  poem.  Its 
theme  is  Farragut's  attack  on  the  forts  at 
Mobile  Harbor  on  Aug.  5,  1864.  The 
first  stanza  is  a  fine  one  : 


294  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"  Three  days  through  sapphire  seas  we  sailed  ; 
The  steady  Trade  blew  strong  and  free, 
The  Northern  Light  his  banners  paled, 
The  Ocean  Stream  our  channels  wet. 
We  rounded  low  Canaveral's  lee 
And  passed  the  isles  of  emerald  set 
In  Blue  Bahama's  turquoise  sea  " 

—  the  dominant  s  alliteration  furnishing 
just  the  right  tone-color  for  the  scene. 
Then  follow  ten  stanzas  in  simpler  four- 
line  ballad  measure,  telling  with  much 
picturesqueness  of  phrase  and  heightening 
of  interest  of  the  suspense  before  the 
hidden  batteries  opened  on  the  ships. 
But  the  moment  came : 

"A  weary  time  —  but  to  the  strong 
The  day  at  last,  as  ever,  came ; 

And  the  volcano,  laid  so  long, 

Leaped  forth  in  thunder  and  in  flame." 

Then  with  startling  suddenness,  to  mark 
the  change  in  situation,  language,  metre, 
everything  is  transformed: 

"  «  Man  your  starboard  battery,' 
Kimberly  shouted. 
The  ship,  with  hearts  of  oak, 
Was  going,  mid  roar  and  smoke, 
On  to  victory! 
None  of  us  doubted, 
No,  not  our  dying  t — 
Farragut's  flag  was  flying  !  " 


A   BATTLE   LAUREATE  295 

And  for  many  strophes  the  whole  expres- 
sion and  movement  is  terse,  rapid,  intense, 
the  lilt  being  so  cunningly  made  up  of  min- 
gled trochees  and  dactyls  as  to  convey 
an  idea  of  the  rush  and  drama  of  the 
action.  The  poet  apostrophizes  the  ships 
as  personalities ;  you  feel  he  loves  them 
as  live  things  a-quiver  with  the  conflict: 

"  Sixty  flags  and  three 

As  we  floated  up  the  bay  ; 
Every  peak  and  mast-head  flew 
The  brave  Red,  White,  and  Blue  : 

We  were  eighteen  ships  that  day." 

As  he  hears  the  shock  of  the  rebel 
guns,  the  lust  of  fight  gets  into  his  blood, 
and  this  stirring  stanza  is  thrown  off  by 
way  of  retaliation : 

"Ah,  how  poor  the  prate 
Of  statute  and  state 
We  once  held  with  these  fellows. 
Here  on  the  flood's  pale  green 
Hark  how  he  bellows, 
Each  bluff  old  sea-Lawyer  ! 
Talk  to  them,  Dahlgren, 
Parrot,  and  Sawyer!" 

Down  went  Craven  and  his  ships  in  the 
drawing  of  a  breath. 


296  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"Then,  in  that  deadly  track, 

A  little  the  ships  held  back, 

Closing  up  their  stations. 

There  are  minutes  that  fix  the  fate 

Of  battles  and  of  nations 

(Christening  the  generations), 

When  valor  were  all  too  late 

If  a  moment's  doubt  were  harbored. 

From  the  main-top  bold  and  brief 

Came  the  word  of  our  grand  old  Chief, 

«  Go  on! '  — 'twas  all  he  said. 

Our  helm  was  put  to  starboard, 

And  the  Hartford  passed  ahead." 

Through  a  hell  of  fire  they  pushed  on ; 
but  the  enemy's  shell  made  havoc. 

"  But,  ah,  the  pluck  of  the  crew  ! 
Had  you  stood  on  that  deck  of  ours, 
You  had  seen  what  men  may  do." 

Even  the  regiments  on  shore  forgot  to 
fire  as  they  looked  on  at  the  awful  spec- 
tacle. Describing  the  carnage,  he  gives  an 
example  of  his  grim  realism : 

"  Dreadful  gobbet  and  shred 
That  a  minute  ago  were  men  " 

—  which  recalls  to  me  a  terrible  touch  of 
Kipling's  in  The  Light  that  Failed^  where 
the  slain  on  that  Soudan  battle-field  are 


A   BATTLE   LAUREATE  297 

pictured,  and  the  narrator  says  he  had 
never  "seen  men  in  bulk  gone  back  to 
their  beginnings  before."  But  bravery 
matched  destruction. 

"And  ever,  with  steady  con, 

The  ships  forged  slowly  by, 
And  ever  the  crew  fought  on, 

And  their  cheers  rang  loud  and  high. 

"  Grand  was  the  sight  to  see 
How  by  their  guns  they  stood, 
Right  in  front  of  our  dead, 
Fighting  square  abreast,  — 
Each  brawny  arm  and  chest 
All  spotted  with  black  and  red 
Chrism  of  fire  and  blood  ! 

"Fear  ?    A  forgotten  form  ! 

Death  ?    A  dream  of  the  eyes  ! 
We  were  atoms  in  God's  great  storm 

That  roared  through  the  angry  skies." 

And  now  the  enemy  turned  and  fled, 
and  then  — 

"So  up  the  Bay  we  ran, 
The  flag  to  port  and  ahead  ; 

And  a  pitying  rain  began 

To  wash  the  lips  of  our  dead  ' ' 

—  this  last  image  as  impressive  as  anything 
in  The  Ancient  Mariner. 


298  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

But  now,  again,  the  deadly  ram  steamed 
up  the  harbor,  and  the  day  is  yet  to  win. 
Farragut  gave  orders  to  run  him  down.  . 

"We  stood  on  the  deck  together, 
-Men  that  had  looked  on  death 

In  battle  and  stormy  weather, 
Yet  a  little  we  held  our  breath, 
When,  with  the  hush  of  death, 

The  great  ships  drew  together  " 

—  a  superlatively  splendid  strophe,  stat- 
ing with  all  the  force  of  indirection  the 
fearsomeness  of  the  collision.  Then  with 
impetuous  verve  we  hear  of  the  mistake 
whereby  the  Union  vessels,  the  Hartford 
and  Lackawanna,  collided,  and  — 

"  The  old  ship  is  gone  —  ah,  no, 
But  cut  to  the  water's  edge." 

Gradually,  however,  the  ram  is  ringed 
in  by  the  northern  fleet  and  plied  with 
shot  and  shell,  until  — 

"Down  went  the  traitor  Blue, 
And  up  went  the  captive  White," 

and  these  noble,  pathetic  lines  follow : 


A   BATTLE    LAUREATE  299 

"Up  went  the  White!    Ah,  then 
The  hurrahs  that  once  and  again 
Rang  from  three  thousand  men 

All  flushed  and  savage  with  fight  ! 
Our  dead  lay  cold  and  stark, 
But  our  dying,  down  in  the  dark, 
Answered  as  best  they  might, 

Lifting  their  poor  lost  arms, 
And  cheering  for  God  and  Right." 

But  the  poet  consoles  his  grief  over  the 
slain  by  a  consideration  of  what  the  victory 
means : 

"  One  daring  leap  in  the  dark, 

Three  mortal  hours  at  the  most, — 

And  hell  lies  stiff  and  stark 

On  a  hundred  leagues  of  coast." 

Then  come  some  beautiful  stanzas,  a 
dirge  for  the  dead  Craven,  reminiscent  of 
Tennyson  a  little  in  spirit  and  rhythm  ; 
and  the  poem  closes  in  a  quieter  lyric  vein 
prophetic  of  the  time  of  peace  after  the 
necessary  strife,  and  surcharged  with  per- 
sonal devotion  to  the  cause: 

"To-day  the  Dahlgren  and  the  drum 
Are  dread  Apostles  of  his  Name ; 

His  Kingdom  here  can  only  come 
By  chrism  of  blood  and  flame. 


3oo  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"Be  strong:  already  slants  the  gold 
Athwart  these  wild  and  stormy  skies  ; 

From  out  this  blackened  waste,  behold, 
What  happy  homes  shall  rise  ! 

"  Nor  shalt  thou  want  one  willing  breath, 
Though,  ever  smiling  round  the  brave, 

The  blue  sea  bear  us  on  to  death, 
The  green  were  one  wide  grave." 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  read  this  pro- 
duction without  a  quickened  pulse ;  it  is 
one  of  the  most  honest  and  inevitable 
utterances  ever  put  into  ballad  form  or 
ode-like  measures.  It  is  a  picture,  an 
action,  and  the  experience  of  a  soul,  all  in 
one ;  and  almost  all  of  it  is  poetry  of  a 
rare,  difficult,  and  inspirational  kind. 

Taking  it  for  all  in  all, —  sustained 
power,  freedom  yet  artistic  beauty  of  form, 
glow  of  feeling,  imaginative  uplift  and  fre- 
quent inspiration  of  word,  phrase,  and 
passage, —  The  Bay  Fight  is  Brownell's 
most  representative  and  memorable  piece 
of  work,  an  epic  performance. 

But  he  did  much  else  in  different  keys, 
though  all  rounding  out  the  one  Song  of 
the  Flag.  There  is  Annus  Memorabilis, 
brief  clarion  call  to  arms,  when  Congress 


A    BATTLE   LAUREATE  301 

in  1 8  60-6 1  hesitated  to  take  the  step,  and 
the  poet  declares : 

"  'Tis    coming,     with    the    boom    of     Khamsin    or 
Simoom, ' ' 

and  with  figures  and  in  a  spirit  of  Miltonic 
austerity  and  grandeur  foretold  the  down- 
fall of  the  "  Serpent  and  his  Crew."  This 
is  a  lyric  which,  when  Senator  Hawley  read 
it  in  his  Hartford  editorial  office,  brought 
him  to  his  feet  in  a  trice,  all  afire  with  its 
power  and  passion,  —  Brownell  as  a  poet 
being  to  him  at  the  time  an  unknown 
quantity.  There  too  is  The  Battle  Summers 
(dated  1863),  a  perfect  lyric,  pensively 
reflective,  quiet,  noble  in  its  musing  upon 
the  past  and  future,  a  dream 

"  Of  many  a  waning  battle  day 

O'er  many  a  field  of  loss  or  fame ; 
How  Shiloh's  eve  to  ashes  turned, 
And  how  Manassas'  sunset  burned 
Incarnadine  of  blood  and  flame." 

In  the  same  vein,  a  lovely  example  of 
his  more  introspective  mood,  A  War 
Study  is  short  enough  to  give  in  its 
entirety : 


302  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"  Methinks  all  idly  and  too  well 

We  love  this  nature  —  little  care 
(Whate'er  her  children  brave  and  bear) 
Were  hers,  though  any  grief  befell. 

"  With  gayer  sunshine  still  she  seeks 

To  gild  our  trouble,  so  'twould  seem ; 
Through  all  this  long  tremendous  dream 
A  tear  hath  never  wet  her  cheeks. 

"And  such  a  scene  I  call  to  mind  : 

The  third  day's  thunder  (fort  and  fleet 
And  the  great  guns  beneath  our  feet) 
Was  dying,  and  a  warm  gulf  wind 

'«  Made  monotone  mid  stays  and  shrouds. 
O'er  books  and  men  in  quiet  chat 
With  the  Great  Admiral  I  sat, 
Watching  the  lovely  cannon-clouds. 

"  For  still,  from  mortar  and  from  gun 
Or  short-fused  shell  that  burst  aloft, 
Outsprung  a  rose-wreath,  bright  and  soft, 
Tinged  with  the  redly  setting  sun. 

"  And  I  their  beauty  praised,  but  he, 

The  grand  old  Senior,  strong  and  mild, 
Of  head  a  sage,  in  heart  a  child, 
Sighed  for  the  wreck  that  still  must  be." 

Down  is  a  thrilling,  lurid  thing,  and 
Suspiria  Ensis  is  virile,  fairly  leonine  in 
some  of  its  strophes.  Sumter  is  again  a 


A   BATTLE   LAUREATE  303 

trumpet  blast,  with  all  the  elan  of  a  cavalry 
charge  in  it : 

"  Sight  o'er  the  trunnion, 

Send  home  the  rammer, 

Linstock  and  hammer  ! 
Speak  for  the  Union 

Tones  that  won't  stammer  ! 

"  Men  of  Columbia, 

Leal  hearts  from  Annan, 

Brave  lads  of  Shannon  ! 
We  are  all  one  to-day  — 

On  with  the  cannon  ! ' ' 

For  personal  characterization,  the  long 
poem,  Abraham  Lincoln,  which  appeared 
originally  in  the  Atlantic^  and  which  in 
some  of  its  lines  and  its  felicity  of  limning 
the  "  first  American  "  is  of  the  same  stock 
as  Lowell's  peerless  ode,  once  read  will 
not  be  forgotten.  Length  for  length,  it  is 
fittest  mate  to  The  Bay  Fight.  My  illus- 
trative quotations  may  be  brought  to  a 
close  with  a  few  borrowings  from  it  and 
a  brief  comment  upon  its  contents.  It 
begins  with  a  description  of  the  peace  and 
beauty  of  Nature,  who,  after  her  manner, 
has  covered  up  and  smoothed  over  the 
unsightly  signs  of  war : 


304  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

"  The  roar  and  ravage  were  vain  ; 

And  Nature,  that  never  yields, 
Is  busy  with  sun  and  rain 
At  her  old  sweet  work  again 

On  the  lonely  battle-fields. 

"  How  the  tall  white  daisies  grow 
Where  the  grim  artillery  rolled  ! 

Was  it  only  a  moon  ago  ? 
It  seems  a  century  old." 

But  the  sad  human  minor  strain  creeps 
in  : 

"And  the  bee  hums  in  the  clover, 
As  the  pleasant  June  comes  on  ; 

Ay,  the  wars  are  all  over  — 
But  our  good  Father  is  gone. 

"  There  was  thunder  of  mine  and  gun, 

Cheering  by  mast  and  tent, 
When,  his  dread  work  all  done 
And  his  high  fame  full-won, 

Died  the  Good  President." 

Then  comes  a  succession  of  burning 
stanzas  in  which  the  inexplicable  dastard 
deed  and  the  doer  are  scored  without 
mercy ;  and  then  follows  one  of  the  finest 
selections  in  the  whole  hundred  and  odd 
strophes  —  that  in  which  Lincoln  is  char- 
acterized : 


A   BATTLE   LAUREATE  305 

"  Kindly  Spirit !     Ah,  when  did  treason 
Bid  such  a  generous  nature  cease, 

Mild  by  temper  and  strong  by  reason, 
But  ever  leaning  to  love  and  peace  ? 

"  How  much  he  cared  for  the  State, 

How  little  for  praise  or  pelf! 
A  man  too  simply  great 

To  scheme  for  his  proper  self. 

"  But  in  mirth  that  strong  head  rested 

From  its  strife  with  the  false  and  violent  — 

A  jester  !     So  Henry  jested  ; 
So  jested  William  the  Silent." 

But  he  is  well  mourned,  says  the  poet ; 
since  the  world  began,  he  declares  in 
noble  hyperbole,  none  "  ever  was  mourned 
like  thee." 

"  Dost  thou  feel  it,  O  noble  Heart 
(So  grieved  and  so  wronged  below), 
From  the  rest  wherein  thou  art  ? 
Do  they  see  it,  those  patient  eyes  ? 
Is  there  heed  in  the  happy  skies 
For  tokens  of  world- wide  woe  ? ' ' 

This  land  and  other  lands  join,  he  goes 
on,  in  the  lamentation,  and  stately  are  the 
signs  and  tokens  thereof;  but  there  is 
homely  grief,  thus  pathetically  set  forth : 


3o6  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

"  Nor  alone  the  State's  Eclipse; 

But  how  tears  in  hard  eyes  gather, 
And  on  rough  and  bearded  lips 
Of  the  regiments  and  the  ships : 

'  Oh,  our  dear  Father  ! ' 

"  And  methinks  of  all  the  million 

That  looked  on  the  dark  dead  face 
'Neath  its  sable-plumed  pavilion, 

The  crone  of  a  humbler  race 
Is  saddest  of  all  to  think  on, 

And  the  old  swart  lips  that  said, 
Sobbing,  '  Abraham  Lincoln  ! 

Oh,  he  is  dead,  he  is  dead  !  '  " 

The  technician  of  verse  will  not  fail  to 
notice  here  the  daring  use  of  a  feminine 
double  rhyme,  dedicate  traditionally  to 
the  comic  mood,  in  a  passage  of  tender- 
est  solemnity. 

Next  comes  a  fine,  broadly  sketched 
picture  of  a  review  of  the  home-coming 
soldiers : 

"  And  all  day,  mile  on  mile, 
With  cheer  and  waving  and  smile, 
The  war-worn  legions  defile 
Where  the  nation's  noblest  stand." 

For  a  few  stanzas  the  tone  is  exultant ; 
then  the  minor  thought  once  more : 


A    BATTLE    LAUREATE  307 

"  And  our  boys  had  fondly  thought 

To-day,  in  marching  by, 
From  the  ground  so  dearly  bought 
And  the  field  so  bravely  fought, 

To  have  met  their  Father's  eye. 

"  But  they  may  not  see  him  in  place, 
Nor  their  ranks  be  seen  of  him  ; 

We  look  for  the  well-known  face, 
And  the  splendor  is  strangely  dim." 

But  after  all,  chants  the  singer,  he  is  in 
a  better  country,  with  his  comrades  around 
him. 

"  For  the  pleasant  season  found  him 
Guarded  by  faithful  hands 
In  the  fairest  of  summer  lands  ; 

With  his  own  brave  staff  around  him, 
There  our  President  stands. 

"  There  they  are  all  by  his  side, 

The  noble  hearts  and  true 

That  did  all  men  might  do, 
Then  slept,  with  their  swords,  and  died." 

Some  twenty  following  stanzas  name 
and  describe  Lincoln's  even-Christians  — 
Winthrop,  Porter,  Jackson,  John  Brown, 
and  the  rest  —  with  him  on  the  thither 
bank  of  the  stream.  And  not  the  leaders 
alone,  but  the  led,  the  nameless  heroes  of 
the  rank. 


3o8  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

"  And  lo,  from  a  thousand  fields, 

From  all  the  old  battle-haunts, 
A  greater  Army  than  Sherman  wields, 

A  grander  Review  than  Grant's  ! 

"  Gathered  home  from  the  grave, 

Risen  from  sun  and  rain, 
Rescued  from  wind  and  wave 

Out  of  the  stormy  main, 
The  legions  of  our  brave 

Are  all  in  their  lines  again  !" 

In  the  course  of  the  succeeding  stanzas 
he  rises  to  these  superb  lines : 

"  But  the  old  wounds  are  all  healed, 
And  the  dungeoned  limbs  are  free ; 

The  Blue  Frocks  rise  from  the  field, 
The  Blue  Jackets  out  of  the  sea. 

'« They've  'scaped  from  the  torture-den, 
They've  broken  the  bloody  sod, 

They've  all  come  to  life  again, 

The  third  of  a  million  men 

That  died  for  thee  and  for  God  ! " 

The  poem  ends  grandly  with  the  final 
touches  to  this  apocalyptical  vision  of  the 
spirit  review : 

"The  colors  ripple  o'erhead, 

The  drums  roll  up  to  the  sky, 
And  with  martial  time  and  tread 


A    BATTLE    LAUREATE  309 

The  regiments  all  pass  by, 
The  ranks  of  our  faithful  dead 
Meeting  their  President's  eye. 

"With  a  soldier's  quiet  pride 

They  smile  o'er  the  perished  pain, 
For  their  anguish  was  not  in  vain  — 

For  thee,  O  Father,  we  died  ! 
And  we  did  not  die  in  vain. 

"  March  on  your  last  brave  mile  ! 

Salute  him,  Star  and  Lace, 
Form  round  him,  rank  and  file, 

And  look  on  the  kind,  rough  face. 
But  the  quaint  and  homely  smile 

Has  a  glory  and  a  grace 
It  never  had  known  erewhile, 

Never,  in  time  and  space. 

"  Close  round  him,  hearts  of  pride  ! 
Press  near  him,  side  by  side. 

Our  Father  is  not  alone  ! 
For  the  Holy  Right  ye  died, 
And  Christ,  the  Crucified, 

Waits  to  welcome  His  own." 

Ill 

In  the  bead-roll  of  the  makers  of  liter- 
ature whom  by  birth  or  adoption  the 
State  of  Connecticut  may  claim  as  her 
own,  Henry  Howard  Brownell  should 
have  a  sure  and  honored  place.  The  list 


310  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

is  neither  short  nor  insignificant:  Mrs. 
Sigourney,  Percival,  and  Halleck,  in  the 
earlier  century,  Stedman,  Warner,  Clem- 
ens, Bushnell,  and  Mrs.  Stowe,  in  later 
days,  are  a  few  of  the  names  that  spring 
to  the  mind.  But  in  all  the  divisions  of 
letters  naught  is  rarer  than  the  true  poet; 
and  such  an  one  is  to  be  recognized  in 
Brownell,  recognized  not  only  by  the 
partial  eye  of  local  pride,  but  also  by 
the  colder  scrutiny  of  critical  opinion  at 
a  time  when  the  first  magnetism  of  the 
singer's  theme  begins  to  lose  its  magic. 
His  was  not  impeccable  verse ;  lines  that 
limp  and  figures  that  fail  are  by  no  means 
absent  from  his  writing.  But  he  had  a 
great  subject,  it  took  hold  on  him,  and  he 
was  consecrate  to  it ;  his  were  thought, 
elevation,  invention,  imagination,  and  an 
almost  unique  opportunity  for  realism,  in 
the  right  meaning  of  that  poor,  distorted 
word.  And,  withal,  he  was  a  truth-loving, 
high-minded,  fearless  gentleman.  As  a 
result,  he  has  left  a  slender  sheath  of 
lyrics  which  so  faithfully  transcribe  certain 
aspects  of  the  Civil  War,  and  are  so  vital 
with  its  atmosphere  and  feeling,  that  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  they  will  miss  of  a  lodg- 


A    BATTLE    LAUREATE  311 

ment  in  the  native  anthology.  Certainly  no 
one  else  has  so  well  performed  just  this  ser- 
vice. There  rings  through  his  song  that 
love  of  country  which  makes  the  Horatian 
quotation,  "  Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria 
mori,"  one  of  the  hackneyed  lines  of  Latin 
poetry.  In  his  most  largely  conceived 
pieces  one  associates  him  instinctively  (at 
least  in  spirit  and  quality)  with  the  very 
few  native  singers  —  Emerson,  Lowell, 
Whitman,  Lanier  —  who  have  chanted 
national  issues  with  elevation  and  adequate 
voice. 

Mr.  Stedman,  who  calls  Brownell  "  that 
brave,  free  singer,"  points  out  with  his 
customary  keen  perception  the  "  half- 
likeness  "  of  the  poet  to  Ticknor,  "  sound- 
ing the  war-cry  of  the  South."  They  are, 
in  sooth,  kinsmen  :  each  was  born  a  poet ; 
each  saw  his  cause  to  be  holy  ;  and  each 
grew  impassioned  and  impressive  with  the 
burden  of  his  utterance.  And  we,  a  gen- 
eration later  (since  there  is  no  sectionalism 
in  genius),  can  love  the  song  and  the  spirit 
of  them  both,  burying  their  difference  of 
belief  under  the  tranquillizing  years,  while 
we  drop  upon  their  far-separated  graves  the 
memorial  flowers  of  a  united  patriotism. 


The  Renaissance  in  English 


THE    RENAISSANCE    IN 
ENGLISH 


TO  say  that  the  English  language,  es- 
pecially in  its  literary  uses,  has  within 
the  second  half  of  this  century  experienced 
a  veritable  renaissance  may  seem  to  be 
making  a  stiff  claim.  Yet  there  is  much 
to  justify  so  strong  a  term  and  statement, 
to  explain  and  illustrate  which  is  the  busi- 
ness of  this  paper.  The  original  impulse 
has  come  from  the  specialists,  who  have 
devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of  Old 
English,  to  the  language  and  literature 
lying  back  of  the  Norman  Conquest.  The 
past  thirty  years  have  witnessed  a  wide 
popularizing  of  the  earlier  native  literary 
treasures  through  their  efforts  ;  the  princi- 
pal texts  have  been  edited  and  translated 
and  lectured  about,  and  their  use  in  schools 
and  colleges  encouraged,  so  that  now  the 
graduate  from  one  of  our  leading  and  lib- 
erally endowed  institutions  may,  if  he 
choose,  know  his  Beowulf  as  his  father  did 


3i6  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

his  Horace.  These  elder  classics  of  the 
mother  tongue  have  not  only  been  taken 
into  the  curricula  of  instruction,  but  have 
been  put  forth  for  broader  literary  appre- 
ciation, with  the  idea  of  literary  stimula- 
tion as  well  as  linguistic  drill.  Then,  too, 
the  comparative  study  of  the  allied  litera- 
tures —  the  output  of  the  Germanic  group 
of  German,  Dutch,  and  Scandinavian  peo- 
ples, of  which  English  is  a  kinsman  —  has 
done  its  share  in  shedding  light  upon  our 
tongue  as  an  organism  governed  by  lin- 
guistic laws  and  possessing  powers  long 
unsuspected. 

To  this  cultivation  of  Old  English  (at 
first  the  province  of  the  few,  but  rapidly 
becoming  the  work  and  pleasure  of  the 
many)  may  be  added  the  closer  study  and 
appreciation  of  later  literary  figures  and 
epochs, —  Chaucer  and  the  Elizabethans 
and  Spenser,  to  say  nothing  of  Shakespeare 
himself,  —  together  with  the  marked  at- 
tention, reaching  almost  to  the  dignity  of 
a  cult,  directed  toward  the  historical  Eng- 
lish ballad;  and  last,  but  by  no  means 
least,  the  increased  sensitiveness  to  the 
literary  quality  of  the  Bible.  To  antici- 
pate no  effect,  sooner  or  later,  upon  native 


THE   RENAISSANCE   IN   ENGLISH  317 

modern  literature,  from  all  the  exploitation 
of  the  older  fields,  —  allowed,  so  many  of 
them,  to  lie  fallow  for  a  long  period,  —  is 
to  overlook  cause  and  effect  in  the  devel- 
opmental interrelations  of  speech  and  let- 
ters. Nothing  could  be  further  from  the 
truth  than  to  suppose  this  movement  to 
be  a  matter  of  mere  literary  fashion  :  it 
goes  far  deeper  than  that.  The  return  to 
Old  English  expression  (always,  of  course, 
within  limits  of  common  sense  and  con- 
trolled by  custom  and  convenience)  is 
not  a  temporary  fad,  but  will  prove  a  per- 
manent enrichment  of  the  force  and  splen- 
dor of  the  speech.  The  preference  for 
native  words  and  idioms  has  grown  so 
marked  that  it  can  be  recognized  plainly 
in  some  of  our  most  effective  and  power- 
ful writers,  while  signs  of  it  crop  out  con- 
stantly in  current  literature.  One  who  for 
the  first  time  turns,  for  example,  to  the 
poetry  of  William  Morris  will  find  it 
something  not  only  rich,  but  strange, 
—  and  for  this  very  reason. 

One  of  the  principal  things  taught  by 
this  restoration  of  English  to  much  of  its 
old-time  valiancy  is  the  tongue's  Germanic 
structure :  that  primitive  ability  in  word- 


3i8  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

forms  and  sentence-construction  which  the 
German,  its  historic  cousin,  has  retained  in 
larger  measure.  The  student  of  English, 
in  tracing  back  its  line  of  development, 
becomes  aware  that  it  converges  steadily 
toward  this  other  tongue  ;  so  that  when 
the  Old  English  period  is  reached  the  in- 
vestigator is  astonished  to  see  how  close, 
compared  with  the  present  status  of  the 
two  languages,  is  the  affiliation  with  Ger- 
man, in  words,  forms,  and  idioms.  So 
true  is  this  that  the  student  is  told  that  a 
first  requisite  for  any  fruitful  pursuance  of 
historic  English  is  the  learning  of  German. 
But  the  latter,  owing  to  its  different  his- 
tory, has  kept  its  native  powers  in  relative 
purity ;  while  English,  subjected  to  more 
disturbing  influences  in  the  Norman  Con- 
quest and  the  classic  Renaissance,  has  di- 
verged far  wider  from  its  normal  physiog- 
nomy and  its  original  tendencies.  As  a 
result  of  such  divergence,  where  the  Ger- 
man uses  a  native  compound  like  vorwort, 
the  English  turns  to  the  Latin  and  makes 
preface;  where  English  domesticates  such 
a  repulsive  foreign  importation  as  massacre^ 
the  German  uses  blutbad  (blood-bath),  a 
native  formation  self-explanatory  to  the 


THE    RENAISSANCE   IN    ENGLISH  319 

most  illiterate  of  the  race ;  and  so  on  with 
hundreds  —  even  thousands  —  of  other 
words  concerning  which  it  is  to  be  said  that 
had  our  own  tongue  encountered  a  happier 
linguistic  experience  it  would,  quite  as  read- 
ily as  its  sister-language,  have  clung  to  its 
birthright  and  privilege  in  this  respect  — 
word-forming  from  within,  and  so  keeping 
the  speech  pure.  And  even  to-day  much 
(though  not  all)  of  this  power  can  be  re- 
claimed, and  a  realization  thereof  is  bring- 
ing it  about.  Thus,  it  is  not  infrequent 
now  that  a  book  by  a  scholar  bears  the 
legend  "foreword"  instead  of  the  custom- 
ary "  preface  ;"  here  is  plainly  enough  the 
effort  to  reinstate,  by  analogy  with  the  Ger- 
man, what  might  have  been  very  properly 
the  distinctive  word  from  the  beginning. 
To  those  who  have  not  looked  into  the 
matter  such  a  seeming  neologism  may  ap- 
pear a  bit  of  pedantry,  an  affectation  with 
no  significance ;  but  it  is  not  so,  for  the 
great  principle  of  English  renascent  in  ac- 
cordance with  its  organic  spirit  lies  behind 
such  a  case.  As  these  older  words  creep 
into  the  diction  of  the  scholar  aware  of  the 
historical  facts  we  have  indicated,  or  are 
used  by  the  literary  worker  keenly  alive 


320 


LITERARY    LIKINGS 


to  the  strength  and  fitness  of  these  speech 
heirlooms,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  ten- 
dency is  wholesome  and  one  to  gather  force 
in  the  time  to  come.  For  it  is  a  return  to 
the  simple  and  the  indigenous,  an  eschew- 
ing of  the  foreign,  which  has  been  overlaid 
like  a  lacquer  upon  the  native  material. 
Of  course  many  of  our  foreign-derived 
words  have  become  so  thoroughly  angli- 
cized as  to  make  it  impossible,  no  less 
than  unadvisable,  to  eradicate  them.  But 
the  method  proposed  is  not  the  rooting 
up  of  what  is  firmly  planted  in  the  speech, 
but  a  reintroduction,  a  calling  back  of  the 
germane,  thereby  ousting  slowly,  unvio- 
lently,  what  is  less  suitable.  It  will  be, 
and  should  be,  a  case  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest. 

The  movement  once  started  by  the 
philologists  and  specialists  in  language  has 
been,  it  may  be  repeated,  carried  on  with 
vigor  by  those  who  make  literature.  It  is 
in  their  efforts  that  the  popular  rehabilita- 
tion of  the  older  and  purer  elements  of 
English  especially  may  be  found.  And  in 
this  welcome  influence  poetry  rather  than 
prose  will  always  be  dominant.  It  is  of 
the  nature  and  essence  of  poetical  diction 


THE    RENAISSANCE   IN    ENGLISH  321 

to  be  archaic,  to  show  a  large  proportion 
of  native  words,  and  this  because  it  is  the 
language  of  the  emotions,  which  always 
chooses  the  homespun  and  the  familiar 
terms  and  forms  natal  in  the  speech. 
Words  like  home,  mother,  father,  love, 
heart,  and  hearth  —  the  category  of  the 
affections  —  will  in  all  tongues  be  recog- 
nized as  born  within  its  body.  And  this 
contribution  of  poetry,  the  highest  form 
of  literature,  to  our  linguistic  treasure- 
trove  will  be  supplemented  inevitably  by 
the  most  imaginative  prose-writing,  since 
the  same  law  is  there  at  work  :  the  indig- 
enous element  strong  when  the  feelings 
are  in  considerable  measure  implicated,  the 
imagination  widest  awake.  A  great  service 
is  being  rendered  by  the  present  accepta- 
bility of  dialect  literature  :  through  the 
attention  in  fiction  to  the  local  "  speech- 
islands,"  as  philologians  dub  them,  the 
dialectical  variations  of  the  common  stock 
of  language  are  brought  into  notice,  and  a 
multitude  of  words,  idioms,  and  phrases 
reinstated  in  the  parlance,  or  at  least  in 
the  cognizance,  of  the  more  sophisticated 
centres  of  speech.  And  since  the  linguis- 
tic survivals  of  the  country-side  are  more 


322  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

often  than  not  the  local  persistence  of 
what  was  once  the  best  English  for  culti- 
vated and  literary  usage,  the  result  is  a 
constant  enrichment  of  the  modern  word- 
hoard.  The  counties  or  colonies  of  Great 
Britain,  the  manifold  sections  of  the 
United  States,  have  in  this  way  yielded 
up  rich  treasures  to  the  skilful  hands  of 
the  poets  and  novelists.  Never  has  the 
local  speech  been  transcribed  with  a  like 
faithfulness,  skill,  and  attraction.  From 
this  cause  the  tongue  will  in  time  become 
an  instrument  of  wider  diapason,  more 
varied  in  its  harmonies,  and  vibrant  with 
immemorial  racial  tones.  The  reader  to- 
day gets  a  new  sense  of  its  possibilities, 
and  is  taught  hospitably  to  throw  open  the 
doors  to  fresh  material  representing  local 
survivals  of  the  sturdy  old  speech  which, 
by  the  good  graces  of  literature,  then  be- 
come revivals  of  our  current  language. 

With  this  outline  sketch  of  principles, 
some  illustrations,  drawn  from  the  various 
channels  of  contribution,  will  make  the 
contention  plainer  and  should  prove  not 
uninteresting.  Let  us  take  a  passage  from 
Dr.  Hall's  metrical  version  of  Beowulf  as 
an  example  of  the  sort  of  English  used 


THE   RENAISSANCE   IN   ENGLISH    323 

by  a  student  who  essays  to  present  such  a 
monument  in  a  modern  dress,  yet  preserves 
as  much  as  may  be  its  primitive  tang  : 

"  Fast  the  days  fleeted  ;  the  float  was  a-water, 
The  craft  by  the  cliff.      Clomb  to  the  prow  then 
Well-equipped  warriors  ;  the  wave-currents  twisted 
The  sea  on  the  sand  ;  soldiers  then  carried 
On  the  breast  of  the  vessel  bright-shining  jewels, 
Handsome  war-armor  ;  heroes  out-shoved  then, 
Warmen  the  wood-ship,  on  its  wished-for  adventure. 
The  foamy-necked  floater,  fanned  by  the  breeze, 
Likest  a  bird,  glided  the  waters." 

To  bring  such  language  into  popular  con- 
sideration is  educative  and  may  be  counted 
upon  for  its  influence  ;  the  archaic  words 
or  forms  can  readily  be  picked  out ;  found 
in  the  vernacular,  they  are  allowed  to  re- 
main in  the  translation  ;  and  it  is  the  test 
of  the  happy  translator  how  close  he  clings 
to  the  original  without  growing  obscure  or 
offensively  odd. 

Dr.  Furnival,  the  doughty  president 
of  the  English  Shakespeare  Society,  is  a 
scholar  whose  studies  might  be  expected 
to  affect  his  diction,  as  indeed  they  have. 
In  his  introduction  to  an  edition  of  Will- 
iam Harrison's  A  Description  of  England^ 
this  wielder  of  forthright  English  speaks 


3  24  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

of  an  "unthrift  young  gentleman,"  and 
his  description  of  Harrison  as  a  personal- 
ity reads  thus : 

A  business-like,  God-fearing,  truth-seeking, 
learned,  kind-hearted,  and  humorous  fellow,  he 
seems  to  me  ;  a  good  gardener ;  an  antiquarian 
and  numismatist ;  a  true  lover  of  his  country  ;  a 
hater  of  shams,  lazy  lubbers,  and  evil-doers  ;  a 
man  that  one  likes  to  shake  hands  with  across 
the  rift  of  two  hundred  years  that  separates  us. 

The  effect  of  this  upon  the  reader  is  of 
a  style  plain,  familiar,  and  racy ;  but  the 
more  it  be  studied  in  extenso  the  clearer  is 
it  seen  that  its  quality  is  due  to  a  bias  for 
the  older  words  and  constructions  —  a 
characteristic  of  Dr.  Furnival's  manner  of 
writing  in  general. 

Among  modern  historians  none  is  so 
remarkable  for  the  Saxon  simplicity  of  his 
style  as  Freeman;  he  carries  his  prefer- 
ence for  the  vernacular  so  far  that  at  times 
he  will  repeat  the  same  native  word  again 
and  again  within  a  few  lines  rather  than 
use  its  classic  or  romance  equivalent  — 
with  an  effect  of  baldness  and  sameness  in 
his  diction.  It  is  not  surprising  that  this 
great  historian's  burrowing  in  the  past  of 


THE    RENAISSANCE   IN   ENGLISH  325 

England  and  English  should  have  left  its 
mark  on  his  prose  ;  the  following  passage, 
from  the  first  lecture  in  The  English 
People  in  its  Three  Homes.,  brings  the  point 
home : 

Here  on  your  soil  I  am  not  indeed  in  mine 
own  home,  but  I  am  none  the  less  among  mine 
own  folk.  I  am  among  men  of  mine  own 
blood  and  mine  own  tongue,  sharers  in  all  that 
a  man  of  either  England  deems  it  his  pride  and 
happiness  to  share  in.  How  can  we  be  strangers 
and  foreigners  to  one  another,  how  can  we  be 
other  than  kinsfolk  and  brethren  of  the  same 
hearth,  when  we  think  that  your  forefathers  and 
mine  may  have  sailed  together  from  the  oldest 
England  of  all  in  the  keels  of  Hengest  or  of 
Cerdic — that  they  may  have  lurked  together 
with  Alfred  in  the  marshes  of  Athelney  —  that 
they  may  have  stood  side  by  side  in  the  thick 
shield-wall  on  the  hill  of  Senlac  —  that  they 
may  have  marched  together  as  brethren  to  live 
and  die  for  English  freedom  alike  on  the  field 
of  overthrow  at  Evesham  and  on  the  field  of 
victory  at  Naseby  ? 

Here,  again,  I  am  aware,  the  general 
physiognomy  of  style  is  that  of  a  homely, 
strong  simplicity,  having,  however,  an 
eloquence  all  its  own  ;  here,  it  might  be 


326  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

said,  is  no  revamping  of  the  tongue,  but 
only  a  straightforward  manipulation  of 
English  unadorned.  Yet  such  a  style  is 
an  exceedingly  rare  phenomenon  ;  it  may 
be  stated  boldly  that  an  example  of  it 
thirty  years  ago  cannot  be  found  in  Eng- 
lish. Only  from  one  who  had  drunk 
deep  draughts  from  the  purest  sources  of 
our  speech  could  such  felicitous  handling 
of  its  Germanic  powers  have  come.  Mr. 
Freeman,  in  the  book  quoted  from,  bears 
down  on  our  close  relationship  to  the 
Germans  and  Dutch,  respectively  second 
and  first  cousins.  Speaking  of  the  "  tie  " 
which  binds  the  English  of  the  British 
isles  to  that  ancient  England  of  the  conti- 
nent whence  they  came,  he  acknowledges 
that  it  may  not  be  at  first  evident,  and 
"  does  not  force  itself  upon  the  mind  by 
the  most  obvious  witness  of  language,  of 
history,  of  all  that  makes  divided  brethren 
to  be  brethren  still.  But  the  tie  is  still 
real  ;  it  is  still  living."  He  is  thinking 
here  of  other  things  than  language,  but 
his  words  apply  thereto  in  full  torce. 

Other  modern  historians,  whose  style  is 
strong  on  the  native  side,  —  men  like 
Green  and  Froude  and  Harrison,  —  fur- 


THE    RENAISSANCE   IN   ENGLISH  327 

nish  examples,  though  not  in  so  striking 
a  degree  as  Freeman,  of  the  influence 
upon  personal  diction  of  deivings  in  the 
bygone  life  and  language.  A  glance  at 
some  modern  poets  may  be  taken,  to 
strengthen  the  impression  ;  and  no  man 
may  fitlier  head  the  list  than  William 
Morris,  whose  verse,  as  already  hinted,  is 
notable  in  this  matter  of  good  old  English. 
I  draw  on  his  great  story-cycle,  'The 
Earthly  Paradise,  a  stanza  from  ^he  Man 
born  to  be  King: 

"  So  long  he  rode  he  drew  anigh 

A  mill  upon  the  river's  brim 

That  seemed  a  goodly  place  to  him  ; 

For  o'er  the  oily,  smooth  millhead 

There  hung  the  apples  growing  red, 

And  many  an  ancient  apple-tree 

Within  the  orchard  could  he  see, 

While  the  smooth  millwalls  white  and  black 

Shook  to  the  great  wheel's  measured  clack 

And  grumble  of  the  gear  within  ; 

While  o'er  the  roof  that  dulled  that  din 

The  doves  sat  crooning  half  the  day, 

And  round  the  half-cut  stack  of  hay 

The  sparrows  fluttered  twittering." 

We  have  chosen  this  earlier  unobtrusive 
example  of  a  happy  use  of  the  native 
English  elements  in  verse  rather  than  one 


328  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

from  the  later,  more  pronouncedly  archaic 
— and  to  some  artificially  Germanic  —  work 
of  Morris,  though  this  richly  illustrates 
the  principle.  This  natural  trouvere  may 
be  called  a  pioneer  of  the  linguistic  renais- 
sance when  it  is  remembered  that  the 
chief  poem-group  of  his  life  dates  from 
1868-70.  And  with  him  may  properly 
be  set  Swinburne ;  he  too  exhibits  in  his 
verse,  in  his  diction  and  metres  as  well, 
the  strong  influence  upon  him  of  the  root- 
flavors  of  speech,  though  in  his  case  a 
softer,  more  voluptuous  effect  is  gained 
by  the  intermingling  of  classic  elements. 
Take  these  stanzas  of  his  magnificent 
paean,  The  Armada,  and  see  how  well- 
nigh  every  word  of  it  is  home-born  and 
monosyllabic —  a  fact  making  its  rhythmic 
flow  all  the  more  wonderful  and  its  force 
the  more  potent : 

"  Greed  and  fraud,  unabashed,  unawed,  may  strive  to 

sting  thee  at  heel  in  vain  ; 
Craft  and  fear  and  mistrust  may  leer  and  mourn  and 

murmur  and  plead  and  plain  : 
Thou  art  thou  ;  and  thy  sunbright  brow  is  hers  that 

blasted  the  strength  of  Spain. 

"  Mother,  mother  beloved,  none  other  could  claim  in 
place  of  thee  England's  place  ; 


THE    RENAISSANCE   IN    ENGLISH  329 

Earth    bears    none    that  beholds  the  sun  so  pure  of 

record,  so  clothed  with  grace  ; 
Dear   our    mother,    nor   son    nor  brother  is   thine  as 

strong  or  as  fair  of  face. 

"  How  shalt  thou  be  abased  ?    or  how  shall  fear  take 

hold  of  thy  heart  ?  of  thine, 
England,  maiden  immortal,  laden  with  charge  of  life 

and  with  hopes  divine  ? 
Earth  shall  wither,   when  eyes  turned  hither  behold 

not  light  in  her  darkness  shine. 

"England,  none  that  is  born  thy  son,  and  lives,  by 

grace  of  thy  glory,  free, 
Lives  and  yearns  not  at  heart  and  burns  with  hope  to 

serve  as  he  worships  thee  ; 
None  may  sing  thee  :   the  sea- wind's  wing  beats  down 

our  songs  as  it  hails  the  sea." 

Mr.  Stedman  speaks  of  Morris  as  showing 
how  well  "  our  Saxon  English  is  adapted 
for  the  transmission  of  the  Homeric 
spirit;"  a  fair  characterization  also  of 
much  of  Swinburne's  lyric  and  dramatic 
writing. 

Compared  with  these  men  in  their  typi- 
cal manner,  the  poetry  of  the  great  earlier 
men  — Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Keats,  and 
Shelley  —  shows  a  startling  difference  in 
regard  of  the  relative  prominence  of  native 
English  words  and  formations.  They  had 


330  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

not  the  advantage  of  the  popularization 
of  younger  literature  which  has  since  tran- 
spired. And  the  latter-day  bards,  the 
generation  subsequent  to  the  Morris-Swin- 
burne time,  reveal  this  influence  more  and 
more,  just  in  proportion  as  they  are  virile 
and  awake  to  larger  possibilities  for  melody 
and  harmony  now  open  to  English. 

Of  American  singers  Sidney  Lanier  is 
unique  in  his  sensitiveness  to  Old  English 
language  and  literature,  coloring  all  his 
work  and  giving  it  a  distinctive  stamp. 
The  fine  couplet  — 

"By  so  many  roots  as  the  marsh-grass  sends  in  the 

sod, 
I  will  heartily  lay  me  a-hold  on  the  greatness  of  God  " 

—  is  representative  of  his  style ;  and  this 
stanza  of  the  Ballad  of  Trees  and  the 
Master  stands,  in  its  Saxon  directness,  for 
much  more : 

"  Into  the  woods  my  Master  went, 

Clean  forespent,  forespent. 

Into  the  woods  my  Master  came, 

Forespent  with  love  and  shame. 

But  the  olives  they  were  not  blind  to  Him, 

The  little  gray  leaves  were  kind  to  Him  ; 

The  thorn-tree  had  a  mind  to  Him 

When  into  the  woods  He  came." 


THE   RENAISSANCE  IN   ENGLISH  33! 

Stevenson  too,  and  Kipling,  whether  as 
poets  or  prosers,  are  of  this  goodly  com- 
pany ;  the  very  title  of  the  former's  Under- 
woods is  eloquent  of  these  older  speech 
memories,  while  in  that  lyric  repository  is 
the  perfect  Requiem  with  its  now  renewed 
pathos,  each  several  word  of  which  is  Eng- 
lish unadulterated,  with  the  one  exception 
of  the  word  verse: 

"REQUIEM. 

"  Under  the  wide  and  starry  sky, 
Dig  the  grave  and  let  me  lie. 
Glad  did  I  live  and  gladly  die, 
And  I  laid  me  down  with  a  will. 

"  This  be  the  verse  you  grave  for  me  : 
Here  be  lies  where  he  longed  to  be  ; 
Home  is  the  sailor,  home  from  the  sea, 
And  the  hunter  home  from  the  hill." 

Kipling  also,  among  those  enchanting 
provocative  interludes  of  rhyme  which  are 
to  be  found  in  his  prose  books,  has  this 
bit  which  clings  to  the  native  side  of  the 
mother-tongue  in  a  fashion  typical  of  this 
virile  young  maker  of  measures  and  spin- 
ner of  yarns : 


332  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

"  Oh,   was  I  born  of  womankind,  and   did  I    play 

alone  ? 
For  I  have  dreamed  of  playmates  twain  that  bit  me  to 

the  bone. 
And  did  I  break  the  barley  bread  and  steep  it  in  the 

tyre  ? 
For  I  have  dreamed  of  a  youngling  kid   new    riven 

from  the  byre, 
An  hour  it  lacks  and  an  hour  it  lacks  to  the  rising  of 

the  moon  ; 
But  I  can  see  the  black  roof-beams  as  plain  as  it  were 

noon." 

Nor  is  this  bent  for  pure  English  con- 
fined to  the  "  chiels  "  of  the  rising  gener- 
ation :  it  is  symptomatic,  and  the  open- 
eyed  reader  meets  with  it  on  all  sides.  In 
a  poem  by  Graham  R.  Tomson  occurs  the 
line  — 

"And  all  her  talk  was  of  some  out  land  rare  " 

—  a  direct  parallelism  with  the  German 
ausland.  In  Bliss  Carman's  fine  Steven- 
son threnody,  A  Sea-mark,  there  are  half 
a  dozen  signs  of  this  desire  or  instinct  — 
which  comes  to  the  same  thing  —  for 
resuscitating  latent  powers  to  the  freshen- 
ing and  beautifying  of  latter-day  vocabu- 
lary and  construction.  Thus : 


THE    RENAISSANCE    IN    ENGLISH  333 
"  But  I  have  wander-bt 


"  You  brethren  of  the  light-heart  guild, 
The  mystic  fellowcraft  of  joy  ;  " 

"A  valiant  earth  ling  stark  and  dumb  ;  " 

"The  journey-wonder  on  his  face  ;  " 

"  Heart-high,  outbound  for  otherwhere  ;" 

—  the  italics  indicating  phrasing  which 
shows  this  promising  American  verseman 
to  have  learned  the  time's  lesson  in  lin- 
guistics. 

And  prose  literature,  notably  fiction, 
adds  richly  to  the  evidential  material,  dia- 
lect (as  explained)  being  a  main  source  of 
contribution.  Again  Stevenson  and  Kip- 
ling are  in  the  van.  In  Dr.  Jekyll  and 
Mr.  Hyde^  the  story  which  first  drew  pop- 
ular attention  to  one  who  had  long  before 
revealed  to  the  judicious  an  artist's  hand, 
may  be  found  half  a  dozen  places  which 
illustrate  the  tendency  to  fall  back  upon 
the  ancient  privileges  of  a  tongue  of  which 
he  was  past-master :  as  where  "  a  sharp 
intake  of  the  breath  "  is  spoken  of.  Some 
of  the  matchless  descriptive  writing  in  The 
Ebb-tide  affords  occasion  for  more  or  less 
in  the  same  sort,  as  here  : 


334 


LITERARY    LIKINGS 


There  was  little  or  no  morning  bank.  A 
brightening  came  in  the  east;  then  a  wash  of 
some  ineffable,  faint,  nameless  hue  between 
crimson  and  silver ;  and  then  coals  of  fire. 
These  glimmered  awhile  on  the  sea-line  and 
seemed  to  brighten  and  darken  and  spread  out ; 
and  still  the  night  and  the  stars  reigned  undis- 
turbed. It  was  as  though  a  spark  should  catch 
and  glow  and  creep  along  the  foot  of  some  heavy 
and  almost  incombustible  wall-hanging,  and  the 
room  itself  be  scarce  menaced.  Yet  a  little  after, 
and  the  whole  east  glowed  with  gold  and  scarlet, 
and  the  hollow  of  heaven  was  filled  with  the  day- 
light. 

Here  there  is  the  magic  blending  of  native 
and  imported  elements  to  make  a  truly 
admirable  style;  but  ever  and  anon  (as 
in  the  italicized  closing  words)  Stevenson 
places  before  the  ravished  observer  a  com- 
pound or  turn  of  expression  or  sentence 
which  has  a  relish  of  old  time  and  the 
sanction  of  bygone  generations. 

Kipling,  too,  is  cunning  in  the  same 
fashion,  allowing,  of  course,  for  the  per- 
sonal equation.  Take  the  following  from 
A  Matter  of  Fact,  one  of  his  most  grew- 
somely  imaginative  tales  : 

As  he  spoke,  the  fog  was  blown  into  shreds, 


THE    RENAISSANCE   IN    ENGLISH  335 

and  we  saw  the  sea,  gray  with  mud,  rolling  on 
every  side  of  us  and  empty  of  all  life.  Then  in 
one  spot  it  bubbled  and  became  like  the  pot  of 
ointment  that  the  Bible  speaks  of.  From  that 
wide-ringed  trouble  a  Thing  came  up — a  gray 
and  red  Thing  with  a  neck  —  a  Thing  that  bel- 
lowed and  writhed  in  pain. 

The  illustrations  from  current  fiction- 
makers  who  have  turned  dialect  to  literary 
uses  is  legion,  and  an  embarrassment  of 
riches  the  result ;  examples  are  hardly 
necessary,  so  obvious  is  this  aspect  of  the 
movement.  In  Raymond's  delightful 
Somersetshire  idyl,  Tryphena  in  Love,  we 
find,  "  And  to-year  she  was  meeting  with 
wonderful  good  luck  "  —  the  remark  be- 
ing the  author's  own,  not  a  part  of  the 
dialogue.  'To-year  survives  in  dialectical 
service  (like  countless  other  words),  and  is 
common  enough  in  the  Elizabethan  drama- 
tists and  further  back  ;  it  may  be  seen  that, 
by  analogy  with  to-day  and  to-morrow,  it  is 
a  capital  formation,  a  regrettable  loss  to 
modern  English.  Mr.  Raymond,  in  the 
preface  to  his  volume  of  short  stories, 
Love  and  Quiet  Life,  speaks  of  this  locu- 
tion, and  adds :  "  And  what  is  the  dis- 
tinguishing initial  vowel  of  the  past-partic- 


336  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

iple  of  the  rustic  but  a  heritage  from  our 
Saxon  [he  means  Old  English]  ancestors?" 
—  going  on  to  point  out  the  resemblance 
between  the  countryman's  prefix,  a,  in  a- 
want,  and  the  Germany  in gewandt.  Ever 
and  again  the  German  comparison  forces 
itself  on  the  student.  In  Justin  H.  Mc- 
Carthy's pleasing  novel,  A  Woman  of 
Impulse  (which  may  be  read  as  the  antidote 
to  Dodo],  I  find  him  speaking  of  "  a  ballad 
with  the  overword  "  —  also  a  strictly  Ger- 
manic compound. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  illustrate  from 
the  Scotch  word-work  of  Barrie,  Crockett, 
and  their  commensals,  since,  of  all  the 
dialect  loosely  grouped  under  the  conven- 
ient name  "  Scotch,"  it  may  be  declared 
that  it  is  strongly  conservative  northern 
English  ;  that  is  a  fair  description,  histori- 
cally, of  the  variations  in  English  to  the 
north  of  the  Firth.  Scotch  proper,  it  may 
be  added,  is  Celtic  —  quite  another  thing. 
But  the  more  conventional  speech  of  these 
two  writers,  as  well  as  of  others  like  Quiller 
Couch  and  Hardy  and  Blackmore,  fur- 
nishes food  for  our  thesis.  Here,  for  ex- 
ample, are  the  very  opening  sentences  of 
Barrie's  A  Window  in  Thrums  : 


THE    RENAISSANCE   IN    ENGLISH  337 

On  the  bump  of  green  round  which  the  brae 
twists,  at  the  top  of  the  brae  and  within  cry  of 
T'nowhead  Farm,  still  stands  a  one-story  house, 
whose  whitewashed  walls,  streaked  with  the  dis- 
coloration that  rain  leaves,  look  yellow  when  the 
snow  comes.  In  the  old  days  the  stiff  ascent 
left  Thrums  behind,  and  where  is  now  the  mak- 
ing of  a  suburb  was  only  a  poor  row  of  dwell- 
ings and  a  manse,  with  Hendry's  cot  to  watch 
the  brae. 

Quiet,  unforced  English,  this ;  but  when 
you  come  to  compare  it  with  that  of  an 
immediate  earlier  generation,  it  is  not  hard 
to  notice  the  change.  Or  read  this  from 
Nora  Hopper's  strangely  poetic  Ballads  in 
Prose,  where  the  influence  is  Celtic  of  the 
Irish  order,  and  the  stylistic  model  Mal- 
ory's Morte  a" Arthur : 

And  when  next  Cuchullin  woke  from  his 
dreams  he  found  that  Ineen  still  held  him  fast, 
though  she  was  dead  and  cold  ;  and  with  some 
difficulty  he  loosed  her  hands  from  him,  and 
dug  with  his  sword  a  grave  for  her  in  the  sand, 
and  there  he  laid  her  sorrowfully,  praying  Angus, 
the  Master  of  Love,  to  keep  her  soul  in  his 
Golden  House,  and  Manannan  MacLir  to  hold 
his  waves  aloof  from  her  sleeping-place.  And 
when  he  visited  the  place  with  Eimer,  after  a  year 


338  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

and  a  day,  they  found  that  the  sea  had  fallen  back 
for  half  a  league,  and  that  the  place  where  the  sea- 
girl  slept  was  a  broad  space  of  grass,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  grass  rose  white  spikes  of  meadow- 
sweet, the  flower  which  for  the  sake  of  a  forgot- 
ten love  and  a  forgotten  sacrifice  is  called  of  us 
to-day  Crios  Chuchulainn  (Cuchullin's  Belt). 

That  in  the  movement  here-above 
sketched  certain  influences  have  been  long 
at  work  has  been  conceded  frankly,  and 
those  influences  named.  Nevertheless, 
that  a  strong  added  impulsion  has  come 
from  the  popularization  of  Old  English 
language  and  literature,  signs  of  which  are 
easy  to  be  seen,  is  a  plain  matter  to  the 
student  and  lover  of  his  native  speech. 
Sometimes  it  shows  in  the  literary  regen- 
eration of  a  word  which  for  centuries  has 
\vimperdu;  sometimes  through  the  intro- 
duction of  an  idiom  out  of  strict  analogy 
with  the  German  ;  again  by  the  elevation 
of  dialect  to  a  more  urbane  place  in  the 
tongue ;  most  often  by  a  widespread  ten- 
dency toward  monosyllabic  Anglo-Saxon. 
But,  whatever  the  manifestations,  all  hark 
back  to  a  common  cause,  stand  for  one 
phenomenon ;  and  it  may  be  affirmed  of 
the  younger  writers,  whether  using  the 


THE   RENAISSANCE   IN   ENGLISH  339 

grand  old  mother-tongue  in  America,  in 
England,  or  in  any  one  of  the  great  colo- 
nies where  she  is  at  home,  those  we  are 
coming  to  look  upon  as  torch-bearers  are 
the  best  exemplars  of  this  hopeful  charac- 
teristic,' it  being,  in  sooth,  one  reason  of 
their  strength  and  place  in  the  forefront. 
A  point  to  be  borne  down  upon  is  the  dif- 
ference between  this  movement  and  sundry 
fashions  in  the  language  of  literature  and 
life  which  have  their  little  day  from  time 
to  time  in  various  countries.  Such  was 
the  Elizabethan  Euphuism,  the  Spanish 
Gongorism,  the  Marianism  of  Italy,  the 
Schwulstigkeit  of  the  Germans,  the  Parisian 
preciosity  ridiculed  by  Moliere.  A  com- 
mon hall-mark  of  all  these  is  affectation  ; 
they  have  a  narrow  aloofness,  are  super- 
ficial and  temporary,  averse  from  what  is 
genuinely  natural  and  national,  whereas 
the  return  to  the  older  in  English  is  — 
allowing  for  the  occasional  posing  and 
strained  effects  of  those  whose  province  it 
is  to  bring  discredit  on  any  tendency  good 
in  itself —  a  going  back  to  what  is  simple, 
strong,  direct,  and  vital  to  our  speech 
instincts. 

This  renaissance  of  English,  then,  silent 


340  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

but  steady,  for  the  most  part  unsensa- 
tional,  but  none  the  less  potent,  is  to  be 
apperceived  to-day,  and  in  the  twentieth 
century  will  be  more  apparent.  And  the 
very  fact  that  our  leading  writers  wish  thus 
to  turn  back  to  native  uses  and  things  is, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  proof  of  the  race's  health, 
of  its  solidarity  and  esprit  de  corps.  We 
may  take  comfort  in  it  when  confronting 
an  alarmist  like  Nordau,  for  a  general 
degeneration  of  the  speech  would  follow 
any  general  degeneration  of  literature; 
and  the  testimony  of  language,  just  now, 
directs  us  to  opposite  and  more  cheerful 
conclusions. 


American  English 


AMERICAN   ENGLISH 

« 

THE  thorough  study  of  English,  as 
language  and  as  literature,  which, 
during  the  last  generation,  has  been  pros- 
ecuted with  zeal  in  several  countries,  has 
blown  away  the  mists  in  various  direc- 
tions and  let  in  the  sunlight  of  truth  upon 
many  questions  historical,  philological, 
and  assthetic.  One  result  of  the  work  done 
has  been  to  put  us  in  a  position  to  esti- 
mate at  their  true  value  ignorant  or  shal- 
low criticisms  on  the  particular  form  of 
English  spoken  in  this  country  —  British 
strictures  often,  but  sometimes  emanating 
from  native  writers  who  aped  the  former, 
and  lacked  all  sound  knowledge  of  the 
subject.  Thanks  to  the  fact  that  both  the 
language  and  literature  of  our  race  are  now 
known  in  their  genesis  and  their  historic 
development,  the  matter  of  the  relation 
and  comparative  importance  of  the  vari- 
ous forms  of  the  English  mother-tongue, 


344  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

spoken  in  the  different  countries  where 
that  speech  is  at  home,  can  be  pronounced 
upon  to-day  with  intelligence  and  a  good 
degree  of  certitude.  And  it  is  high  time 
some  general  canons  of  criticism  should  be 
made  popular ;  for  a  woful  amount  of 
misconception  and  nebulous  thinking  is 
to  be  noted  among  people  of  brains  and 
culture.  In  truth,  questions  of  language- 
use  in  general  appear  to  offer  a  premium 
for  guesswork  and  opinion  without  any 
logic  back  of  it.  One  man  is  as  good  as 
another  when  it  comes  to  philology,  is  too 
often  the  assumption  in  society.  The 
two  commonest  methods  of  settling  dis- 
putes when  the  matter  of  words  comes  up 
is  by  an  appeal  to  a  dictionary  —  and 
more  likely  than  not  to  one  which  should 
not  be  taken  as  a  final  authority  —  or, 
worse  yet,  by  the  complacent  remark  that 
So-and-So  is  right  in  London  ;  ergo,  it  is 
right  for  the  United  States  of  America. 
There  are,  however,  a  few  principles  which 
can  be  and  ought  to  be  set  up  as  a  guide 
to  save  us  from  the  thoughtlessness  or  the 
ignorance  implied  in  such  attempts  to  get 
at  the  truth.  Sounder  views,  to  be  sure, 
are  not  unique  :  Mr.  Brander  Matthews, 


AMERICAN   ENGLISH  345 

for  example,  in  his  belligerently  patriotic 
paper  on  Americanisms  and  Briticisms,  sets 
forth  with  a  lively  wit  the  fact  that  honors 
are  easy  in  the  matter  of  good  speech  here 
and  over  seas,  and  so  introduces  the  idea 
of  independence  to  the  self-respecting 
native.  But  Mr.  Matthews  makes  no 
effort  to  formulate  the  principles  under- 
lying his  position,  and  based  on  literary 
and  linguistic  history  ;  hence  his  paper, 
stimulating  and  healthy  in  tone  as  it  is, 
can  hardly  be  named  as  a  court  of  appeal. 
In  the  present  essay  a  method  of  criticism 
is  suggested  and  a  few  tests  applied  which, 
it  is  hoped,  may  prove  helpful  to  others 
who  are  interested  in  the  subject,  but  not 
sure  of  their  footing. 

In  the  past  the  typical  British  attitude 
toward  American  English  has  been  that  of 
patronizing  superiority  and  shallow  incom- 
petence ;  nor  is  this  state  of  things  su- 
perseded altogether  at  the  present  time. 
Plenty  of  Englishmen  when  they  hear  our 
familiar  use  of  the  word  guess  smile  at 
it  as  a  Yankee  barbarism,  blissfully  uncon- 
scious that  it  is  in  the  highest  literary 
usage  of  the  fourteenth  century  and  com- 
monly employed  by  both  Wiclif  and 


346  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

Chaucer.  Thus,  in  the  former's  transla- 
tion of  the  New  Testament,  Matthew  vi., 
7,  we  read  :  "  But  in  praying,  nyle  ye 
speke  much,  as  hethen  men  doon,  for  the 
gessen  that  they  be  herd  in  their  myche 
speche."  And  in  the  Prologue  to  the 
Canterbury  Tales,  line  1182  runs  as  fok 
lows :  "  A  forster  was  he  soothly,  as  I 
gesse."  In  the  same  way,  we  find  even  so 
great  a  scholar  as  the  late  E.  A.  Free- 
man, on  hearing  the  word  rare,  as  applied 
to  underdone  beef,  used  over  here,  jump- 
ing to  the  conclusion  that  this  was  an  occi- 
dental locution,  and  much  surprised  when 
it  was  pointed  out  to  him  that  Dryden  has 
the  word  in  this  sense  a  couple  of  hundred 
years  ago.  Without  further  illustration, 
these  two  examples  suggest  an  axiom 
which  may  be  expressed,  categorically,  in 
this  wise :  The  great  majority  of  alleged 
Americanisms  are  survivals  of  older  and 
excellent  English  which  the  Britons  have 
allowed  to  fall  into  desuetude.  It  is  very 
easy  to  be  tricked  in  this  matter,  and  the 
more  study  one  makes  of  it  the  greater 
caution  one  is  likely  to  exercise  in  decid- 
ing off-hand  on  a  given  word  or  idiom. 
A  personal  experience  may  be  in  order. 


AMERICAN   ENGLISH  347 

When  the  writer  first  ran  across  the  plural 
noun  humans  in  an  American  newspaper, 
he  shuddered  with  horror.  The  headline 
A  Heap  of  Humans,  to  describe  the  results 
of  a  railway  accident,  seemed  to  smack  of 
the  wild  and  woolly  West  so  strongly,  it 
had  an  effect  of  such  slangy  newness,  that 
the  simple  act  of  consulting  a  good  dic- 
tionary was  scorned ;  and  it  was  only  after 
meeting  the  word  in  Kipling,  and  later  in 
the  Derbyshire  dialect  of  a  generation  ago, 
as  written  in  David  Grieve,  that  the  word- 
use  was  seen  to  be  English.  Thereupon 
a  reference  to  the  Century  Dictionary 
disclosed  humans  as  popular  with  the 
Elizabethan  dramatists.  Bartlett,  in  his 
Dictionary  of  Americanisms,  gives  the  word, 
thus  slipping  into  a  very  easy  error. 

Having  set  up,  then,  this  first  great 
principle,  that  a  given  Americanism  in 
speech  may  be  simply  a  retention  of  good 
English,  the  course  of  action  of  the  seeker 
after  truth  is  obvious  when  a  dispute 
arises  :  find  out  if  the  word,  phrase,  idiom, 
be  not  a  legitimate  survival,  and  if  it  turn 
out  to  be  (which  it  will,  as  stated,  in  a 
surprisingly  large  number  of  cases),  why, 
then  stick  to  it  as  defensible  and  quite 


348  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

right.  Whether  it  happen  to  be  in  Lon- 
don usage  to-day  or  not  matters  not  a 
whit.  Moreover,  it  is  the  testimony  of 
scholars,  and  of  British  scholars  them- 
selves, that,  as  a  whole,  American  English 
has  preserved  the  archaisms  of  the  parent 
speech  with  more  care  and  good  faith  than 
the  British  English  itself.  This  is  a  very 
remarkable  phenomenon  at  first  sight,  but 
quite  capable  of  explanation.  A  band  of 
colonists,  say,  comes  over  to  these  shores 
in  the  early  seventeenth  century,  and 
settles,  bringing  the  speech  uses  of  their 
time  and  whilom  habitat ;  inasmuch  as  the 
region  these  colonists  live  in  is  an  un- 
peopled one,  and  they  are,  so  to  speak,  a 
close  community,  their  words  and  idioms 
will  tend  to  persist,  and,  as  a  result,  after 
a  hundred  years  or  so  their  speech  will 
resemble  that  of  their  fatherland  at  the  time 
they  left  it  more  nearly  than  will  the 
speech  of  those  left  behind  in  England,  who 
have  been  subjected  to  far  more  of  outside 
and  disparate  influence.  This  is  the  reason 
why  the  language  of  the  countryside  is 
always  more  conservative,  more  flavorous 
of  the  past  speech-life,  than  is  the  tongue 
of  the  town.  Thus,  New  Englandisms 


AMERICAN    ENGLISH 


349 


will  not  seldom  turn  out  to  be  Old  Eng- 
landisms  in  disguise  ;  that  is,  with  a  clipped 
nervous  pronunciation  or  a  nasal  drawl. 

But  Americanisms  in  language  do  not 
have  to  be  survivals  of  older  English  ex- 
pression in  order  to  be  impeccable.  They 
may  be  revivals  also,  and  yet  quite  as  legit- 
imate. In  the  case  of  survivals,  we  have 
words  which,  in  use  among  the  English  at 
the  time  the  American  colonists  branched 
off  from  the  mother-tree,  were  kept  alive 
by  the  latter,  while  allowed  to  die  by  the 
former.  By  revivals,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  meant  those  speech-uses  once  current, 
but  allowed  by  English-speaking  folk  to 
be  superseded  by  newer  words,  pushed  into 
forgotten  corners,  yet  treasured  in  literary 
monuments,  and  awaiting  the  perceptive 
eye  and  the  deft  hand  to  bring  them  again 
on  the  stage.  These  rehabilitations  are 
the  peculiar  province  of  literature  and 
scholarship  ;  and,  owing  to  the  renaissance 
of  older  English  already  mentioned,  they 
are  a  marked  feature  of  the  present  day. 
A  moment's  reflection  will  show  that  in 
this  linguistic  liberty  the  American  has 
naturally  as  large  a  part  and  as  clear  a 
franchise  as  his  British  cousin.  American 


350  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

writers  and  speech-users,  in  the  course  of 
their  commerce  with  the  older  English 
authors,  may  very  well  adopt  words  and 
phrases  therefrom ;  who  shall  gainsay 
them  ?  It  is  common  property  the  Amer- 
ican has  drawn  upon,  and  he  has  simply 
been  more  assimilative  than  his  kinsman 
across  the  water,  in  case  the  latter  has  not 
revived  the  word  or  idiom.  There  are 
men  to-day  in  this  country  who  read  their 
one  hundred  lines  of  Beowulf  in  the  origi- 
nal as  a  morning  eye-opener ;  Dr.  Furness, 
of  Philadelphia,  reads  a  play  of  Shake- 
speare daily,  it  is  said.  With  this  sort  of 
thing  going  on,  it  is  not  only  natural,  but 
inevitable,  that  the  sturdy  old  resources  of 
our  tongue  should  serve  as  a  stimulus  to 
restore  much  that  is  fine  and  germane  to 
our  national  instincts  in  speech,  and  which 
has  been  lying  fallow,  maybe,  for  centuries, 
waiting  for  the  resurrecting  hand.  The 
tendency  to  fall  back  thus  on  native  words 
and  idioms  which  have  been  disesteemed 
in  favor  of  Latin  or  romance  substitutes 
may  be  seen  in  the  poetry  of  William 
Morris,  the  prose  of  Freeman,  the  tales 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  Rudyard 
Kipling ;  or,  with  us,  the  poetry  of  Lanier 


AMERICAN    ENGLISH  351 

furnishes  an  example,  verse,  with  its  lean- 
ing to  the  archaic,  always  preceding  prose 
in  this  respect.  A  single  example  will  suf- 
fice :  For  generations  the  word  •preface  has 
been  in  vogue  to  denote  an  introduction 
to  what  follows  ;  but  it  is  now  no  uncom- 
mon thing  to  find  scholars  using  in  its 
place  the  word  forespeech,  the  pure  English 
equivalent  of  the  Latin  •preface.  This  is 
one  of  the  revivals  we  have  in  mind ;  and, 
obviously,  it  makes  no  difference  whatever 
if  it  chance  to  be  an  American  or  a  Brit- 
isher, an  Anglo  Indian  or  an  Australian, 
who  revives  the  acceptable  locution.  Such 
a  one  as  the  above  commends  itself  at 
once  to  every  perceptive  handler  of  the 
tongue.  The  criticism  that  attacks  such  a 
procedure  and  dubs  the  result  an  "  Ameri- 
canism," when  it  happens  to  originate  on 
our  soil,  is  wide  of  the  mark  and  suffi- 
ciently amusing.  One  caution  is,  however, 
necessary.  Before  deciding  that  a  word, 
phrase,  or  idiom  is  a  revival  in  this  way, 
rather  than  a  survival,  dictionaries,  schol- 
ars, or  the  literature  itself  in  all  its  mani- 
fold forms  of  dialect,  slang,  and  technical 
usage,  must  be  consulted ;  only  by  a  care- 
ful, lynx-eyed  survey  of  the  field  can  one 


352  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

indulge  in  that  perilous  pleasure,  a  cock- 
sure judgment.  For,  over  and  over  again, 
it  will  be  found  that  what  appears  to  be 
new-coined  or  revamped  has  in  reality  a 
steady  local  life  somewhere  within  the 
broad  lands  where  the  English  language  is 
at  home. 

But  supposing  an  Americanism  is  not  a 
survival  of  older  and  legitimate  uses  nor  a 
revival  due  to  assimilation  of  the  earlier 
literature,  even  if  it  be  a  brand-new  crea- 
tion, something  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land,  it  will  not  be  illegitimate  or  unac- 
ceptable necessarily  ;  not  at  all.  If  it  obey 
the  laws  of  the  genius  of  our  tongue,  it 
may  be  both  without  sin  and  acceptable. 
But  the  occasion  must  demand  it,  and  the 
man  on  hand  be  large  enough  to  furnish 
it.  With  these  conditions  fulfilled,  there 
is  no  more  against  neologisms  made  on 
American  soil  than  there  is  against  those 
made  on  British  soil.  In  either  case  it  is 
a  question  of  need,  taste,  and  knowledge. 
It  is  safe  to  make  the  assertion  that  to-day, 
what  with  the  survivals,  the  revivals  so 
fast  appearing,  and  the  constant  accessions 
from  all  sides  to  the  ranks  of  our  English 
word  army,  as  the  scientific  nomenclature 


AMERICAN   ENGLISH  353 

is  enriched  by  new  discoveries,  there  is  less 
necessity  than  ever  before  for  the  minting 
of  fresh  coins  of  expression.  Yet  times 
and  occasions  there  are  which  demand  the 
creative  fiat. 

Such  a  movement  as  the  temperance 
cause  gives  us  in  this  century  the  capital 
word  teetotaller,  so  good  a  formation  that 
it  is  fathered  by  both  British  and  Amer- 
ican, though  the  weight  of  evidence  favors 
our  priority  of  use;  while  reconstruction 
days  produced  the  spirited  word  scalawag^ 
unquestionably  originating  here,  even  if  it 
be  traced  back  to  a  connection  with  the 
diminutive  Shetland  cattle  known  as  scal- 
lowag.  Or  for  an  absolute  creation,  our 
socio-political  life  gives  us  come-outer,  which 
immediately  commends  itself  for  native 
strength  and  fitness.  And  in  the  way  of 
idiom,  the  colloquial  come  off,  the  serious  dis- 
cussion of  which  may  still  provoke  a  smile, 
will  on  analysis  be  seen  to  be  a  vigorous 
formation  entirely  on  the  lines  of  historic 
construction  and  finding  its  literary  proto- 
type in  the  Shakespearean  go  fo,  which 
once,  beyond  peradventure,  had  a  con- 
notation as  jocose  as  has  the  recent  idiom 
at  present  to  our  ears.  A  decade  hence  it 


354  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

will  sound  very  different.  How  silly  it 
would  be  to  deny  to  some  of  these  Amer- 
ican speech  creations  an  equal  right  to 
existence  with  sundry  British  formations 
which  also  prove  themselves  legitimate  off- 
spring, not  bastards  !  Something  in  the 
local  conditions  called  for  them  and  so  they 
were  born,  and  others  in  like  manner  will 
be,  whether  in  the  tight  little  isle  or  in  the 
broad  free  ways  of  this  western  hemisphere. 
And  notice  of  the  new  or  low-born  word 
or  phrase  of  yesterday,  that  you  are  not  in 
a  position  yet  to  say  whether  it  will  be 
ephemeral  or  become  historic.  The  Brit- 
isher cannot  pronounce  ipse  dixit  upon  it, 
for  the  very  good  reason  that  we  Amer- 
icans cannot  tell  ourselves.  The  slang  of 
to-day  is  the  idiom  of  to-morrow :  slang, 
indeed,  being  idiom  in  the  making.  It  is 
evident  now  that  dude  will  be  read  in  the 
novels  and  essays  of  the  better  class  by  the 
future  student  who  puzzles  over  our  native 
speech  traits  ;  it  is  duly  recognized  by  the 
International  Webster  and  the  Century 
Dictionaries.  But  half  a  dozen  years 
ago  it  was  still  doubtful  coin  as  a  legal 
tender.  Under  these  circumstances,  how 
absurd  for  the  British  censor  to  pass  judg- 


AMERICAN   ENGLISH  355 

ment  on  some  fin  de  siecle  speech-use  in 
America  on  the  ground  that  it  is  non-Brit- 
ish and  vulgar.  What  he  cavils  at  may  be 
classic  in  the  next  generation  ;  or,  although 
he  may  hit  upon  some  word  or  idiom  that 
is  essentially  canaille  and  never  can  be 
received  as  part  and  parcel  of  good  Amer- 
ican usage,  he  is  in  no  position  to  consti- 
tute himself  a  judge,  inasmuch  as  inadmis- 
sible cockney  slang  is  in  evidence  quite  as 
palpably  as  the  Bowery  argot  which  offends 
his  taste.  The  Londoner  who  calls  his 
fellow  a  "  bloody  fool  "  is  just  as  far  from 
good  English  as  the  Yankee  who  playfully 
characterizes  his  mate  as  a  "  son-of-a-gun." 
In  connection  with  this  subject  of  slang,  it 
is  worth  mentioning  that  in  the  power  of 
making  fit  and  forceful  words  on  occasion 
the  American,  as  every  fair-minded  student 
will  admit,  is  remarkably  happy.  Prof. 
John  Earle,  one  of  the  first  living  author- 
ities on  English,  and  himself  an  English- 
man, has  said  that  "  in  the  utilizing  of 
slang  by  giving  it  an  artistic  value,  Amer- 
ican literature  seems  to  enjoy  a  peculiar 
prerogative."  Orthoepy  makes  a  large 
division  of  the  general  subject  of  English 
speech,  and  with  American  English  in 


356  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

mind,  a  remark  or  two  must  be  made  about 
our  pronunciation  in  relation  to  that  of 
the  Briton.  Here  again  historic  phonetics 
and  the  laws  of  linguistic  development  gov- 
erning the  evolution  of  the  English  tongue 
as  a  whole  must  be  consulted  and  answer 
given  accordingly.  Owing  to  climatic  and 
resultant  physiological  reasons,  owing  per- 
haps to  the  freer  mingling  of  races  on  our 
shores,  English  in  the  mouth  of  Americans 
has  a  sound  not  always  tallying  with  the 
same  words  spoken  on  the  other  side  of 
the  big  pond.  And  on  the  whole,  let  it 
be  admitted  frankly  that  the  vowel  qual- 
ities heard  from  our  cousins  are  richer  and 
more  musical  than  our  own.  Therefore, 
when  the  broad  a  sound  is  taught  in  the 
schools  or  at  home  as  a  substitute  for  the 
higher,  thinner,  intensely  cacophonous 
vowel  heard  in  the  noun  calf  on  the  lips 
of  the  New  England  rustic,  exactly  the  cor- 
rect thing  is  being  done ;  for  the  broad  a 
not  only  makes  for  euphony,  but  is  his- 
torically right  phonetics.  It  does  not 
smack  of  Briton  worship  to  favor  it,  unless 
it  be  favored  for  the  sole  reason  that  it  has 
the  London  hall-mark.  But  in  some  other 
of  his  orthoepic  characteristics,  the  Briton 


AMERICAN    ENGLISH  357 

is  slovenly  and  reprehensive :  as  where  he 
slurs  over  a  syllable  in  order  to  pronounce 
conservatory  as  if  he  wrote  it  conservt'ry. 

For  an  American  to  imitate  him  here 
shows  a  beautiful  commingling  of  the 
dunce  and  the  sycophant.  The  matter  of 
accent  in  English  is  one  which  most  peo- 
ple find  bothersome,  and  are  conscious  of 
insecurity  about :  a  fact  witnessed  to  by 
the  frequent  appeals  to  those  in  authority 
and  the  puzzlement  following  on  dis- 
agreement among  the  dictionary-makers. 
There  is,  however,  one  great  general  law 
of  accent  at  work  in  English  speech  which, 
once  in  the  mind,  will  keep  the  American 
from  ever  stretching  out  imploring  hands 
for  help  from  England,  as  if  the  decision 
must  come  thence  to  be  of  avail.  The  law 
is  this  :  Accent  in  English  is  recessive,  it 
tends  to  work  back  to  the  root  syllable, 
or  even  further,  to  the  first  syllable,  when 
the  word  happens  to  be  foreign  and  the 
root  does  not  coincide  with  the  first  sylla- 
ble, as  it  does  with  native  English  words. 
This  law  of  recessive  accent  in  our  tongue 
—  in  sharp  contrast  with  a  tongue  like  the 
Persian,  for  example,  where  the  accent  is 
progressive,  or  tends  to  fall  on  the  final 


358  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

syllable,  as  Istaphan  —  will  prove  an  ever- 
present  help  in  time  of  trouble  if  it  is 
applied  in  questions  of  accentuation,  when 
Webster  and  Worcester  breed  confusion 
it  may  be,  and  British  usage  makes  con- 
fusion worse  confounded.  To  illustrate  : 
If  a  pronunciation  \\\^t  decorative  suddenly 
appears,  and  makes  an  effort  to  force 
itself  into  polite  society  in  the  phrase, 
"  The  Decorative  Art  Society,"  we  may 
promptly  squelch  it,  without  stopping  to 
ask  by  your  leave,  since  it  tries  to  force 
forward  by  one  syllable  the  accent  of  a 
thoroughly  anglicized  word,  where  the 
stress  had  already  reached  the  first  syl- 
lable (^corative)  and  there  rested.  Just 
in  proportion  as  a  word  borrowed  from 
foreign  sources  has  become  true-blue  Eng- 
lish, so  that  we  write  it  without  italics,  will 
it  be  found  conserving  this  irresistible  ten- 
dency ;  in  some  few  instances  euphony 
comes  in  to  make  exceptions  (as  in  poly- 
syllabic words),  but  the  general  principle 
may  be  postulated  without  any  fear  of 
contradiction.  If  American  or  Britisher, 
then,  violate  this  law,  the  sin  must  be  laid 
at  the  door  of  the  sinner ;  it  is  utterly  illog- 
ical and  silly  for  the  former  to  cry  par- 


AMERICAN   ENGLISH  359 

don  of  the  latter,  it  being  the  business  of 
each  to  obey  the  law,  the  law  they  are  both 
subject  to. 

These  few  principles,  upon  which  Am- 
erican English  can  be  and  should  be  de- 
fended and  is  to  be  judged,  will  lead  us,  it 
is  to  be  hoped,  to  the  conclusion  that  an 
independence  born  of  a  scholarly  and 
broad-minded  view  of  the  case  should  be 
cultivated  by  every  patriotic  and  thought- 
ful man  and  woman  in  these  United  States. 

Neither  Anglophobia  nor  Anglomania 
need  influence  us  here,  but  the  facts  should 
be  followed  and  our  position  reasoned  out. 
And  in  conclusion  we  may  formulate  ex- 
plicitly what  has  been,  all  through  our 
argument,  an  implicit  assumption  ;  namely, 
good  English  has  no  meaning  except  in  re- 
lation to  the  country  in  which  it  is  spoken. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  good  English 
in  the  abstract ;  in  England  the  English 
heard  in  the  mouths  of  the  most  culti- 
vated people,  or  written  by  the  most  reputa- 
ble makers  of  literature,  is  the  norm  and 
standard.  In  America  exactly  the  same 
holds  true.  To  assume  that  we  must  look  to 
London  for  our  model  is  to  acknowledge 
that  the  English  speech  has  degenerated  as 


360  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

wielded  by  the  English  colonists  and  their 
descendants.  And  since  degeneration  of 
speech  can  only  come  from  degeneration  of 
character,  the  inference  is  that  the  English 
stock  is  in  a  bad  way  in  these  parts.  But 
the  quality  of  the  original  settlers,  the  stuff 
that  they  showed  to  be  in  them  in  the 
troublous  colonial  and  revolutionary  days 
and  in  later  days  of  war  and  peace,  to- 
gether with  our  present  proud  position 
among  the  nations  of  civilization,  suffice 
to  answer  such  a  preposterous  notion.  Am- 
erican English  is  to-day  a  distinct  variation 
of  British  English,  and  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  and  the 
other  Romance  tongues  are  variants  of  the 
mother  Latin  tongue.  Dialectical  differen- 
tiations always  arise  where  a  homogeneous 
language  sends  out  branches  to  other  parts 
of  the  earth  ;  and,  logically,  it  is  as  absurd 
to  fault  or  depreciate  the  speech  of  the 
United  States  for  its  divergences  from 
British  uses  as  it  would  be  to  take  excep- 
tion to  the  language  of  Leopardi,  Hugo, 
and  Valera,  because  it  is  not  Ciceronian 
Latin.  The  only  difference  is  that  in  the 
case  of  Romance  peoples  a  much  longer 
time  has  elapsed  since  they  split  off  from 


AMERICAN   ENGLISH  361 

Rome,  and  so  the  changes  are  more  strik- 
ing. In  the  case  of  American  English, 
too,  the  centripetal  forces  of  modern  social 
life  will  forbid  ours  ever  becoming  a  dis- 
tinct tongue.  But  room  there  will  always 
be  for  individual  freedom  and  national 
independence  in  this  matter  of  speech,  and 
that  American  who  fears  to  exercise  these 
democratic  privileges  is  not  only  laying 
himself  open  to  the  charge  of  ignorance : 
he  is  forfeiting  his  birthright  as  well. 


Literature  for  Children 


LITERATURE    FOR    CHILDREN 


THE  key-note  of  modern  education 
is  found  in  the  right  instruction  of 
children.  The  acceptance  and  spread  of 
the  kindergarten  idea  may  be  said  to  have 
revolutionized  our  notions  in  respect  of 
this  problem,  and  from  this  as  a  central 
principle  and  efficient  cause  all  betterment 
of  pedagogic  methods  in  the  higher  grades 
of  school  and  college  and  university  life 
has  come.  Touching  these  subsequent 
periods,  the  most  important  and  signifi- 
cant change  in  the  conception  of  the 
proper  grading  and  relative  value  of 
studies  is  the  recognition  of  English  (in 
the  broad  sense)  as  a  natural  centre  of 
culture  for  an  English-speaking  person. 
It  is  coming  to  be  felt  that  education  in 
the  English  language,  literature,  and  life, 
for  purposes  of  vital  broadening  and  en- 
richment, is  of  pronounced  importance 
for  those  who  speak  the  tongue.  As  a 


366  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

result,  in  our  manifold  institutions  of 
learning  the  English  course  is  given  more 
time,  more  attention,  and  more  dignity  as 
a  branch  of  work.  All  who  keep  abreast 
of  modern  pedagogic  thought  are  aware  of 
this. 

And  along  with  the  changed  attitude 
towards  English  goes  a  wiser  apprecia- 
tion of  the  use  of  literature  in  this  study ; 
a  tendency  to  make  literary  instruction 
more  dominant  and  to  introduce  it  at  an 
earlier  period  of  the  school  life,  postpon- 
ing the  purely  analytic  studies  —  of  which 
grammar  is  a  type — to  a  later  time. 
The  banner  cry  of  those  leaders  who 
have  at  heart  the  interests  of  the  pri- 
mary and  intermediate  grades  now  seems 
to  be  :  "  Not  facts  —  ideals  ;"  a  phrase  the 
sentiment  of  which  is  revolutionary  to  the 
older  notions.  Psychology  has  taught  us 
that  the  intuitive  emotional  impressions 
can  be  received  best  at  a  comparatively 
tender  age ;  and  such  are  the  very  impres- 
sions imparted  by  the  early  contact  with 
noble  literature.  The  plastic  sensibilities 
are  ready  for  the  effect  of  poetry  and  im- 
aginative prose ;  all  that  stands  for  the 
heart-side  and  the  soul-side  of  literature 


LITERATURE    FOR    CHILDREN      367 

may  to  the  best  advantage  be  inculcated 
during  that  receptive  hour  of  childhood 
when  the  good  can  be  appreciated,  though 
mayhap  it  cannot  be  explained.  It  is  a 
splendid  victory  that  has  been  won  in  the 
grasping  and  engrossing  of  this  idea :  in- 
stead of  the  three  R's  of  the  old-time 
educational  dispensation  we  have  substi- 
tuted the  three  H's, —  the  hand,  the 
head,  and  the  heart,  —  each  to  be  trained, 
all  to  be  interrelated ;  the  manual,  men- 
tal, and  emotional  evoked  in  the  organic 
unity  which  is  properly  theirs. 

This  shift  and  broadening  of  ideals  is 
a  main  cause  for  rejoicing.  The  thesis, 
then,  that  the  best  literature  is  none  too 
good  for  young  children  in  the  school  or 
in  the  home,  that  to  stimulate  the  imagi- 
nation and  awaken  the  soul  through  the 
gracious  ministries  of  song  and  story  and 
soul  revelation  is  of  more  importance 
than  the  memorizing  of  dates  or  the  util- 
ities of  the  multiplication-table,  is  pretty 
well  established.  One  who  undertakes  to 
argue  for  the  making  of  early  instruction 
in  literature  ethical  and  inspirational  rather 
than  analytic  and  knowing,  has  his  audi- 
ence with  him  as  it  never  would  have  been 


368  LITERARY   LIKINGS 

a  generation  ago.  We  now  regard  educa- 
tion not  so  much  as  an  attempt  to  fill  up  a 
scholar  with  facts  and  figures,  or  to  prepare 
him  for  money-getting  but  rather  as  the 
drawing  forth  of  the  powers  in  such  sym- 
metry that  the  moral  and  spiritual  faculties 
shall  be  given  precedence  of  those  intellect- 
ual. Hence  the  emphasis  put  upon  the 
efficacy  of  early  ideals  and  the  fruitful  influ- 
ence of  great  literature  which,  by  the  very 
condition  of  its  greatness,  is  a  power  that 
makes  for  spiritual  quickening. 

But  what  are  the  best  methods  in  bring- 
ing about  this  precious  nurture  of  children 
through  contact  with  the  word-work  and 
the  soul-work  of  poets,  orators,  drama- 
tists, and  weavers  of  story  ?  What  litera- 
ture shall  be  given  them,  and  how  and 
when? 

At  the  outset  we  must  contradistinguish 
between  boys  and  girls.  Boys  like  action, 
adventure ;  they  run  to  the  sensational, 
even  truculent,  in  reading ;  girls,  per  contra, 
like  the  domestic,  that  which  centres  about 
the  family  affections  and  the  sweet  minis- 
tries of  home.  This  is  a  broad  generaliza- 
tion. Girls  there  may  be  who  have  a  fond- 
ness for  Tom  Brown  s  School  Days,  boys 


LITERATURE   FOR   CHILDREN      369 

who  admire  Little  Women.  But  the 
distinction  holds,  and  it  suggests  at  once 
the  disadvantage  of  a  public  school  where 
sex  in  literary  or  other  education  must  be 
ignored  more  or  less.  Of  course,  there 
are  to-day  those  who  see  no  sex  in  the 
thought-processes  and  emotions  of  young 
people  of  opposite  sexes  —  who  indeed  go 
further  and  regard  mind-stuff  as  sexless 
throughout  life.  Such  will  pooh-pooh  at 
my  notion.  But  to  the  present  writer  the 
willingness  to  overlook  or  the  practical 
inability  to  recognize  such  claims  shows 
shallow  thinking.  Great  laws  of  nature 
arraign  themselves  against  puny  man 
here. 

But,  waiving  this  point,  it  may  be  re- 
marked that  the  fast-growing  inclination 
to  give  children  pieces  of  literature  in 
the  whole,  instead  of  by  scraps  in  the  ex- 
cerpts of  earlier  days,  is  an  excellent  good 
thing.  A  piece  of  literature  is  an  organ- 
ism and  should  therefore  be  put  before  the 
scholar,  no  matter  how  young,  with  its 
head  on,  and  standing  on  both  feet.  This 
idea  is  now  generally  acted  upon  ;  witness 
the  enormous  growth  of  text-books  pre- 
senting literary  masterpieces  in  their  en- 


370  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

tirety  —  or  if  this  is  not  done,  at  least  in 
substance  keeping  to  the  organic  struct- 
ure. Certain  critics  of  the  inner  circle 
affect  to  sneer  at  this  tendency.  Andrew 
Lang,  for  example,  laments  what  he  deems 
the  Bowdlerization  and  cheapening  of  the 
classics,  an  objection  whimsical  enough  and 
hardly  becoming  in  one  who  has  been 
dubbed,  facetiously,  Editor-in-General  to 
the  British  public.  Nor  must  the  moral 
aspect  of  the  editing  of  literature  be  over- 
looked—  this,  too,  provocative  of  cult- 
ured sneers.  Mr.  Howells  has  written 
true  and  noble  words  on  this :  "  I  hope 
the  time  will  come,"  says  he,  "  when  the 
beast-man  will  be  so  far  subdued  and 
tamed  in  us  that  the  memory  of  him  in 
literature  shall  be  left  to  perish  ;  that  what 
is  lewd  and  ribald  in  the  great  poets  shall 
be  kept  out  of  such  editions  as  are  meant 
for  general  reading,  and  that  the  pedant- 
pride  which  now  perpetuates  it  as  an  es- 
sential part  of  those  poets  shall  no  longer 
have  its  way.  At  the  end  of  the  ends 
such  things  do  defile ;  they  do  corrupt." 
It  is  well  to  get  such  testimony  from  a 
captain  of  letters. 

In  view  of  all  this  preparation  of  stand- 


LITERATURE   FOR   CHILDREN      371 

ard  writings  for  the  young,  there  is  little 
excuse  for  putting  children  off  with  the 
second-best  and  the  well-enough.  The 
choicest  is  none  too  good.  The  dominant 
division,  fiction,  for  instance,  now  includes 
Mrs.  Molesworth,  Mrs.  Gatty,  Mrs. 
Ewing,  Mrs.  Burnett,  Mrs.  Wiggin, 
Harris  and  Page,  Stevenson  and  Kipling, 
and  a  score  more,  these  names  being  set 
down  almost  at  random.  The  pabulum 
furnished  us  children  of  a  larger  growth 
by  Optic  and  Alger  and  Mayne  Reid 
has  been  superseded  by  more  heavenly 
food.  And  the  older  aristocracy  of  child 
literature  still  makes  its  appeal  in  books 
like  Robinson  Crusoe  and  Kingsley's  Water 
Babies,  to  mention  two  that  stand  for 
many.  Inasmuch  as  the  spiritually  beau- 
tiful, as  we  have  said,  is  the  most  de- 
sirable of  all,  books  of  this  sort  should 
come  first  in  favor  —  beginning  with  the 
Bible.  Not  the  didactic,  goody-goody 
stuff  which  made  the  old-time  Sunday- 
school  library  too  often  a  place  of  tears 
and  penance  for  healthy-minded  young 
folk.  The  day  is  clean  gone  by  for  the 
tales  wherein  the  bad  boy  who  goes  a-fish- 
ing  on  the  Sabbath  gets  not  fish,  but  a 


372  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

flogging,  to  be  triumphed  over  most  un- 
Christianly  by  the  good  little  boy  who 
didn't  go  —  probably  because  he  daren't. 
No,  I  mean  that  which  is  lovely,  inspira- 
tional literature,  where  the  artistic  and  the 
ethical  are  recognized  for  the  kinsmen 
they  are,  linked  by  the  subtlest,  sweetest, 
strongest  of  ties.  And  at  the  very  head 
and  forefront  of  such-like  books  the  Bible 
must  be  placed.  The  Bible,  in  judicious 
selections,  not  gulped  down  whole,  is  pre- 
eminently a  book  for  literary  and  ethical 
stimulation.  We  hear  much  of  the  Bible 
as  literature  nowadays,  and  Professor 
Moulton's  most  suggestive  volume  is 
symptomatic,  summarizing  well  a  changed 
attitude,  a  truer  philosophy.  A  new 
interest  in,  a  deeper  love  towards,  the 
Scriptures  are  thus  born.  Once  concede 
this  use  of  the  Book,  and  the  question  of 
its  function  in  the  school  is  settled.  It 
should  have  its  place  there,  along  with 
other  great  literature,  as  a  quickener  of 
the  sense  of  beauty  and  the  sense  of  right. 
To  make  it  a  theological  text-book  is 
monstrous,  and  if  its  daily  presence  among 
the  pupils  meant  denominational  teaching 
or  propagandism  we  would  have  none  of 


LITERATURE    FOR    CHILDREN      373 

it.  But  regard  the  Bible  as  a  composite,  a 
wonderful  repository  of  history,  prophecy, 
song,  story,  drama,  and  nai've  people- 
science,  matchless  in  expression  and  sur- 
charged with  the  ethic  temper,  and  its 
exclusion  were  suicidal.  Better  for  many 
of  us  had  we  been  made  in  the  school,  yes, 
and  in  the  nursery,  to  commit  to  memory 
long  passages  and  chosen  parts  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  —  as  did  the  young 
John  Ruskin,  it  will  be  remembered ;  that 
great  man's  testimony  to  the  potent  influ- 
ence upon  him  of  the  Book  being  worth 
repeating  always :  "  Walter  Scott  and 
Pope's  Homer  were  reading  of  my  own 
selection,  but  my  mother  forced  me,  by 
steady  daily  toil,  to  learn  long  chapters  of 
the  Bible  by  heart ;  as  well  as  to  read  every 
syllable  through  aloud,  hard  names  and 
all,  from  Genesis  to  Apocalypse,  about 
once  a  year ;  and  to  that  discipline  — 
patient,  accurate,  and  resolute  —  I  owe 
not  only  a  knowledge  of  the  Book  which 
I  find  occasionally  serviceable,  but  much 
of  my  general  power  of  taking  pains  and 
the  best  part  of  my  taste  in  literature. 
From  Walter  Scott's  novels  I  might  easily, 
as  I  grew  older,  have  fallen  to  other 


374 


LITERARY    LIKINGS 


people's  novels,  and  Pope  might  perhaps 
have  led  me  to  take  Johnson's  English, 
or  Gibbon's,  as  types  of  language;  but, 
once  knowing  the  32d  of  Deuteronomy, 
the  1 1 9th  Psalm,  the  ifth  of  ist  Corin- 
thians, the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and 
most  of  the  Apocalypse,  every  syllable  by 
heart,  and  having  always  a  way  of  think- 
ing with  myself  what  words  meant,  it  was 
not  possible  for  me,  even  in  the  foolishest 
times  of  youth,  to  write  entirely  superficial 
or  formal  English."  And  again  he  declares 
of  this  experience  that  he  counts  it  "  very 
confidently  the  most  precious  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  one  essential  part  of  all  my 
education." 

This  mention  of  the  memorizing  of 
Scripture  by  one  of  the  masters  of  pure 
style  leads  on  to  the  remark  that  in  bring- 
ing children  into  contact  with  the  great 
literature  of  the  world  the  habit  of  com- 
mitting to  memory  is  most  fruitful.  The 
storing  of  the  mind  with  choice  passages 
will  prove  a  godsend  in  after  years  —  will 
yield  good,  I  incline  to  think,  even  if  it 
be  done  parrot-like  at  the  time.  The 
pedagogic  tendency  now  is  in  all  branches 
to  teach  independence  of  speech  rather 


LITERATURE   FOR   CHILDREN      375 

than  the  mechanically  memorized  lesson. 
In  the  literature  of  knowledge  (science) 
no  doubt  the  danger  lies  in  the  latter ; 
but  in  the  literature  of  power,  which  we 
are  here  considering,  the  memory  is  a 
trusty  and  valued  servant  who  guards  us 
from  the  loss  of  veritable  treasure.  How 
many  of  us  in  mature  life  can  testify  to 
the  comfort  and  help  and  uplift  that  has 
come  from  stray  fragments  of  poem  or 
essay  or  oration  learned  years  before, 
perhaps  in  childhood  !  Often,  when  we 
are  separated  from  books,  listless,  distrait, 
sick,  they  have  been  evangels  bringing 
pure,  sweet,  and  noble  images  and  a 
quickened  spirit. 

But  now,  lumping  boys  and  girls  to- 
gether—  which,  though  bad  psychology, 
seems,  so  far  as  the  school  goes,  to  be 
necessary  —  and  admitting  the  major 
premise  that  great  literature  should  be 
given  them  and  given  them  early,  a  few 
more  specific  remarks  may  be  made. 
There  is  considerable  choice,  within  the 
category  of  great  literature,  of  what  is 
wisest  to  use.  Divers  kinds  of  fish  come 
into  this  drag-net.  I  apprehend  that  in 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  gradation 


376  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

from  youth  to  maturity  the  objective  lit- 
erature, the  literature  of  action  and  char- 
acter and  picturesqueness,  rather  than  that 
which  is  subjective,  will  be  best  adapted 
to  the  purpose.  Hence  fiction  of  the 
Walter  Scott  and  Stevenson  kind  will  be 
given  preference  over  that  of  Thackeray 
and  George  Eliot.  In  poetry,  the  epic, 
the  ballad,  and  the  lyric  of  simple  song 
will  prove  better  than  the  reflective  piece 
or  the  purely  descriptive.  History  on 
the  personal,  graphic  side — treating  it  as 
Carlyle  conceived  it  to  be,  the  story  of 
great  men  —  is  good  for  the  little  ones 
and  most  affected  by  them.  Dickens' 
Child's  History  of  England,  whatever  its 
faults,  has  the  shining  merit  of  grasping 
this  fact.  So,  of  course,  biography  will 
attract  more  than  the  essay  proper,  for 
example  (and  still  more  the  essay  im- 
proper), that  form  being  food  for  the 
adult  digestion.  I  should  conclude  that 
a  child  who  liked  Charles  Lamb's  papers 
or,  to  mention  a  latter-day  author,  Agnes 
Repplier's,  needed  to  be  sent  out  into  the 
open,  with  orders  to  ride  a  wheel  or  play 
golf  or  tennis.  Certainly  the  preference 
would  seem  alarmingly  priggish,  though 


LITERATURE   FOR   CHILDREN      377 

such  children  exist,  it  may  be,  as  do  three- 
headed  pigs  and  other  abnormalities. 
Speaking  broadly,  it  is  amazing  how 
children  of  the  healthy,  normal,  matter-of- 
fact  sort  like  literature  that  is  alive,  whole- 
some, having  sentiment,  not  sentimen- 
tality, and  some  narrative  human  interest. 
As  a  rule,  they  relish  it.  I  once  experi- 
mented with  a  boy  who  hated  the  very 
word  "  literature,"  and  whose  soul  was 
completely  absorbed  in  football  and  track 
athletics.  I  read  to  him,  in  course, 
Homer's  Odyssey^  in  Palmer's  fine  prose 
translation,  a  canto  a  night.  The  result 
was  he  imitated  Oliver  Twist,  calling  for 
more  in  case  I  flagged.  And  yet  this  was 
a  lad  of  the  unliterary  age  of  fifteen,  who 
could  not  abide  the  mere  mention  of 
poetry.  But  naturally  enough  he  fell  in 
love  with  the  wanderings  of  that  fine  old 
buccaneer  Ulysses  ;  naturally  enough  he 
liked  to  hear  about  the  Cyclops  and  the 
Sirens,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  The  smell 
of  the  sea  was  in  it  all,  and  the  smack  of 
adventure  and  the  magic  of  marvel.  Be 
assured  that  the  reader  did  not  damage 
his  case  by  telling  the  boy  beforehand 
that  here  was  a  master  poem.  That  had 


378  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

been  a  stupid  letting  the  cat  out  of  the 
bag.  Get  the  story  going,  and  all  is  well : 
the  world  of  children  loves  a  story  as  the 
grown-up  world  is  said  to  love  a  lover. 

Then  if  we  come  to  discriminate  between 
prose  and  poetry,  the  former  must  be  given 
the  preference  with  young  folk  in  mind, 
and  the  latter  administered  only  in  homoe- 
opathic doses.  Here  again  the  sexes  dif- 
ferentiate :  girls,  as  a  class,  care  more  for 
poetry  than  boys,  as  indeed  do  women 
more  than  men.  Poetry,  broadly  speak- 
ing, is  more  subjective  and  elusive  than 
prose,  hence  it  is  less  adapted  to  the  im- 
mature comprehension.  Yet  verse  on  its 
musical  side,  with  its  alliteration  and  rhyme, 
its  rhythm  and  picture-making,  has  often 
a  great  fascination  for  children,  as  mothers 
many  will  testify ;  and  an  acquaintance  with 
this,  the  highest  form  of  literature,  should 
be  inculcated  at  a  tender  age,  as  likely  to 
be  of  paramount  service  in  creating  ideals 
and  developing  the  sense  of  beauty.  The 
slow  gradations  by  which  this  may  be 
effected  is  a  test  of  the  nicest  skill  of  the 
educator.  The  road  from  the  Mother 
Goose  jingles  to  the  dramatic  monologues 
of  a  Browning  is  a  long,  but  not  necessarily 


LITERATURE   FOR   CHILDREN      379 

a  weary  one.  Prof.  William  J.  Rolfe,  in 
his  recent  excellent  little  work  The  Ele- 
mentary Study  of  English,  advocates  the 
use  of  poetry  in  the  grammar-school  grade. 
"  Let  me  suggest,"  he  says,  "  that  the 
critical  study  of  some  masterpiece  of  litera- 
ture, especially  poetry,  is  one  of  the  best 
possible  exercises  for  the  teacher  in  this 
department.  It  may  or  may  not  be  some- 
thing that  one  has  to  teach  in  school,  —  it 
is  well,  in  my  opinion,  that  it  should  be 
something  above  the  range  of  one's  daily 
work,  — but  the  manner  of  study  is  of 
more  importance  than  the  matter."  The 
work  will  prove,  he  thinks,  for  the  pupil 
of  this  age,  "  at  once  a  delightful  recreation 
and  valuable  self-culture." 

Some  principle  in  choosing  out  of  the 
whole  corpus  liter aricum  the  literature  which 
can  be  grasped  and  enjoyed  by  the  young 
is  important,  in  order  to  avoid  a  false  sen- 
timentality, which  too  often  plays  about 
this  subject.  I  refer  to  that  misconcep- 
tion which  sees  the  child  not  as  it  really  is, 
but  as  it  appears  through  the  illusion  of 
our  mature  sentiment.  Perhaps  the  finest 
expression  in  poetry  of  this  view  is  found  in 
Wordsworth's  peerless  ode  on  the  Intima- 


380  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

tions  of  Immortality  in  Early  Childhood. 
That  this  is  a  superlative  piece  of  English 
poetry  we  all  know;  fewer,  I  fear,  have 
realized  that  its  psychology  is  very  du- 
bious. If  the  poet  had  presented  the  child 
as  caught  up  in  and  by  his  affection,  trans- 
muted into  something  which  had  all  the 
beauty  and  innocence  of  youth  with  the 
high  thought  that  comes  with  years,  he 
had  been  acceptable.  But  to  impute  to 
the  child  per  se  a  kind  of  angelhood  is  es- 
sentially untrue.  Boys  and  girls  do  not 
have  those  shadowy  intimations,  nor  do 
they  come  trailing  garments  of  glory  from 
on  high.  These  little  ones'  helplessness 
and  loveliness  and  trusting  lack  of  guile 
constitute  the  most  winsome  appeal  on 
earth  to  older  folk.  It  is  right  and  seemly 
to  overflow  with  feeling  about  children. 
But  Wordsworth  goes  further :  he  says, 
practically,  that  the  child  is  nearer  high, 
pure,  and  wondrous  things  than  the  man, 
which  contradicts  all  science  and  common- 
sense.  The  brutal  fact  is  that  your  nor- 
mal child,  sound  of  mind  and  limb,  is, 
in  comparison  with  what  he  may  hopefully 
come  to  be,  a  healthy  little  animal;  more 
selfish  in  a  nai've  way;  more  absorbed  in 


LITERATURE   FOR    CHILDREN      381 

practical  and  carnal  matters,  and  not  a  bit 
interested  in  supernal  affairs.  Our  child 
literature,  therefore,  must  be  chosen  with 
this  truth  —  palatable  or  otherwise — in 
mind  ;  if  it  is  not  so  chosen,  we  shall  get 
in  a  fog.  We  must,  on  the  contrary,  work 
gradually  from  the  concrete  towards  the 
abstract  ideal,  always  seeing  to  it  that  the 
lesson  in  the  most  objective  bit  of  litera- 
ture be  wholesome  and  holy.  The  ethic 
quality  may  be  as  strong,  be  it  remem- 
bered, in  the  straightforward  story  of 
narration  as  in  the  pious  preachment ;  the 
sermon  may  be  there,  though  hidden 
in  the  envelopment  of  art,  —  the  reader 
being  all  unwillingly  influenced  by  what 
George  Eliot  calls  the  "  slow  contagion  of 
good."  I  knew  a  teacher  in  a  Sunday- 
school  who  was  looked  at  askance  by  some 
of  the  members  because,  after  the  more 
serious  matters  were  successfully  dis- 
patched, he  read  to  his  class  of  urchins 
Aldrich's  little  masterpiece,  'The  Story  of 
a  Bad  Boy.  But  I  am  sure  it  did  them 
good  (the  attendance  showed  it  interested 
them) ;  and  equally  sure  that  the  Sunday- 
school  library  is  impoverished  ethically 


382  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

and  otherwise  which  does  not  include  that 
particular  volume. 

The  difficulty  of  discrimination  in  schools 
in  the  matter  of  literature  for  boys  and 
girls  was  spoken  of:  all  other  discrimina- 
tions —  that  between  backward  and  for- 
ward pupils,  for  example  —  are  also  dif- 
ficult wherever  children  are  taught  and 
studied  en  masse.  This  suggests  the  noble 
function,  the  superlative  importance,  of 
the  home  in  purveying  literature  to  the 
little  ones.  Thus  the  child  can  get  that 
individual  attention,  that  loving  study,  as 
a  detached  personal  problem,  which,  from 
its  very  nature,  is  beyond  the  province  of 
the  school.  Those  schools  which  are  fa- 
mous the  world  over  for  their  fruitful  meth- 
ods —  one  thinks  of  Froebel  and  Pesta- 
lozzi  —  have  taken  their  cue  from  the 
home.  The  kindergarten,  in  sooth,  is  an 
adaptation  of  the  playground  and  nursery. 
No  wonder  it  is  being  emphasized  that 
mothers  are  the  first  teachers;  that  is, 
teachers  not  by  rule,  but  from  the  nature 
of  their  inherent  relation  to  the  child; 
amateurs,  not  in  the  sense  of  ignorance, 
but  lovers  of  the  task.  What  may  not 
parents  in  the  environment  of  the  home 


LITERATURE   FOR   CHILDREN      383 

accomplish  for  the  cause  of  higher  educa- 
tion !  "  With  the  mothers,  and  fathers  too, 
aroused  to  the  fact  that  they  are  teachers," 
says  Prof.  James  P.  Munroe,  in  his  stim- 
ulating work  on  'The  Educational  Ideal,, 
"and  that  the  home  is  a  school-house; 
with  the  study  which  they  must  increas- 
ingly give,  under  this  new  light,  to  that 
complex  organism,  the  child ;  with  the 
psychological  and  psychical  sciences  resting 
upon  data  which  shall  be  thus  collected 
—  the  day  for  a  rapid  growth  in  educa- 
tional methods  is  not  far  distant.  .  .  . 
Having,  after  centuries  of  wandering, 
brought  the  child  back  to  his  proper 
atmosphere,  the  home,  having  determined 
who  shall  be  responsible  for  his  teaching 
and  what  shall  be  the  final  aim  of  that 
teaching,  we  have,  indeed,  put  the  educa- 
tional question  upon  a  sound  and  healthy 
basis.  We  have  at  last  learned  how  to 
follow  nature,  and  we  are  beginning  to 
understand  that  the  best  education,  in- 
deed the  only  right  education,  is  a  natural 
one." 

So,  in  this  matter  of  literature  for  the 
young,  the  influence  of  the  home  teaching 
is  enormous;  all  the  school  can  do  pales 


384  LITERARY    LIKINGS 

before  it.  Let  the  mother  add  to  the 
poet's  rhyme  the  music  of  her  soft  voice 
and  beloved  tone;  let  great  fiction  be  read 
to  the  breathless  group  of  curly  heads 
about  the  fire;  and  the  wonders  of  sci- 
ence be  unrolled,  the  thrilling  scenes  and 
splendid  personalities  of  history  displayed. 
Children  thus  inspired  may  be  trusted  to 
become  sensitive  to  literature  long  before 
they  know  what  the  word  means  or  have 
ratiocinated  at  all  upon  their  mental  experi- 
ence. It  is  comforting  to  reflect  that  a 
mother,  a  parent,  wishing  in  our  day  to 
do  this  for  the  nearest  and  dearest,  is 
helped  as  never  before:  by  enlightened 
librarians  and  libraries  of  generous  habits ; 
by  child  literature  from  the  best  authors 
of  our  time ;  by  plenty  of  good  criticism 
furnishing  a  lamp  to  the  seeker's  feet. 
Children  are  lucky  to  be  children  nowa- 
days, for  the  idea  is  pretty  well  dissemi- 
nated that  the  choicest  from  all  the  gar- 
nered riches  of  the  great  world  of  liter- 
ature should  be  given  them,  that  they  may 
early  be  possessed  of  thoughts  and  feelings 
that  are  true  and  large,  sweet  and  beautiful. 


The   Potter   and  the   Clay 

A  Romance  of  To-day 

By  MAUD  HOWARD  PETERSON.  Bound  in  blue  cloth, 
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"  CLIVEDEN"  is  an  historical  romance  by  Kenyon 
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Judith's  Garden 

By    MARY    E.   STONE    BASSETT 


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Exits  and  Entrances 

A  Book  of  Essays  and  Sketches 

By  CHARLES  WARREN  STODDARD,  Author  of 
"South  Sea  Idyls."  8vo.  Bound  in  dark  green  cloth, 
gilt  top,  rough  edges*  Frontispiece  portrait  of  Author. 
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AND  ENTRANCES"  is  a  volume  of 
Essays  of  exceptional  interest  by  Charles  War- 
ren Stoddard,  whose  "  South  Sea  Idyls  "  is  one  of  the 
little  classics  of  American  literature.  Mr.  Stoddard 
in  this  book  gives  personal  reminiscences  of  inter- 
esting literary  figures  like  Kingsley,  George  Eliot, 
Stevenson,  Bret  Harte,  and  Mark  Twain;  writes 
prose  poems  of  travels  as  fascinating  as  Heine's 
"  Reisebilder  " ;  or  treats  his  experiences  in  the  form 
of  half-fiction  and  half-essay,  an  altogether  delight- 
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The  book  makes  a  series  of  essays  and  sketches 
full  of  charm,  and  is  enriched  by  a  frontispiece 
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Oe  Link  Green  Door 

By    MART    E.    STONE    B  AS  SETT 

Eight   illustrations    by  Louise    Clarke    and    twenty-five   decorative 

half-title  pages   by  Ethel  Pcarce   Clements 

izmo  Cloth  #1.50 

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Louis  XIII.  The  door  which 
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loves." — Baltimore  Herald. 

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tirely of  the  fancy,  but  a  refreshing  one." — Chicago  Tribune. 

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Lothrop,   Lee  &  Shepard  Co. 

BOSTON 


MISS     BILLY 

A      NEIGHBORHOOD      STORY 

By   EDITH    K.    STOKELY   and    MARIAN    K.    HURD 

Illustrated  by   CHARLES   COPELAND 

i2mo    Cloth    1.50 

"VfISS  BILLY"  deserves  more  than  passing 
notice  in  these  days  of  civic  improvement. 
It  is  a  story  of  what  an  irrepressible  young  woman 
accomplished  in  the  neighborhood  into  which  her 
family  felt  obliged  to  move  for  financial  reasons. 
The  street  was  almost  as  unpromising  as  the  celebrated 
"  Cabbage  Patch."  and  its  characters  equally  inter- 
esting and  original.  The  happy  common-sense  of 
Miss  Billy  and  the  quaint  sayings  and  doings  of 
her  new  neighbors  form  a  capital  story. 

"The  story  abounds  in  humor  with  a  hint  of  tears  and  an  over- 
flowing kindness  of  heart  bubbling  over  in  infectious  gayety." 

—  Boston  Herald. 

"The   book   is   sure   to   have   an  immense  number  of  readers." 

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"The  plan  of  the  tale  is  original,  the  conversation  very  bright  and 

witty,    the    style   smooth,  and   the  characters  true  to  life." 

—  Boston    Transcript. 

"It  is  a  human  interest  story  which  appeals  to  the  heart,  and  at 
one  juncture  to  the  eyes  of  the  sympathetic  readers." 

— Pittsburg  Chronicle    Telegraph. 

"  'Miss  Billy'  is  a  charmingly  bright,  clever  little  story,  full  of 
spontaneous  humor  and  frankly  inspirational." 

— Chicago  Daily  News. 

"This  is  an  ideal  story."  —  N.    Y.   Times. 

Eotbrop,  Ece  *  Sbepard  go.  *  *  Boston 


A     000  024  857     5 


